Reclaiming Our Home

Now that Mother has moved out, Bryan and I have started to rearrange thigs a bit to make this house our home. 

Just to be clear, we are NOT throwing anything of Mother’s away – we are simply moving it all into her rooms, to be delt with at a later date when she is in her permanent place at the Home. We’ll either move her stuff over to her or sell it at a Garage Sale (the proceeds of which will go into her bank account).

The very first thing we did was to take down the curtain. Mother had placed a curtain across the opening to our “suite” in order to block the “cold breeze” from chilling her as she sat at the dining room table. What this actually did was block all the heat from getting to our side of the house. Not a horrible thing exactly, but I hated that curtain as it was constantly getting me tangled up as I tried to carry things back and forth.

The second thing we did was to turn down the thermostats and let the fire in the wood stove die. She had the house hovering around 80 degrees most of the time, and Bryan & I just died on a daily basis. I have more shorts & tank tops than sweaters now! Since we no longer need to worry about keeping her warm, the house is at a much more comfortable 67 degrees. The cats are not impressed, by the way. They spend their days hugging their heating pad in the bedroom.

This weekend we have begun the process of rearranging the kitchen, making it easier to work in. The pantry still needs attention, but the kitchen is looking good! I had to apply a generous amount of elbow grease to the windowsill: it was in desperate need of the Murphey’s Oil soap. But I think it cleaned up nicely!

We also hung a few pictures up to fill the holes where Mother’s pictures used to be. I finally got my polar bears out, as well as a few other odds & ends.

Next on our list is the bunk room. Bryan is going to turn that room into his office, giving me the space he’s currently occupying to use as a quiet sitting area. I imagine the whole switcharoo will take us a couple months before we can say it’s officially done.

Mother's Transition Into The Pioneer Home

So, Mother’s transition into the Pioneer Home has been a rough one. We expected that, so weren’t completely taken by surprise.

The first room they put her into was a shared room. We knew ahead of time that she would have a roommate, and tried to make sure that Mother understood what that meant. But I guess the reality of it was not what Mother thought it would be: she was not happy. We made it as homey and comfortable as possible for her, but in the end it just did not work. To tell you the truth, her roommate asked to have her removed! Mother has no boundaries, and was being a bit too “helpy”

So she is now in what used to be an office. It’s a bit smaller than the space she had before, it has no closet, and the bathroom is a public one directly across the hall from her. But, and most importantly, she loves it. We again have made it as homey and comfortable as possible (she has her pictures hung - just didn't get a picture of it) and she constantly fusses with things: rearranging and moving things around.

This is still a temporary spot: once the reconstruction work is complete, she will be moved in to an actual single room (with a closet & bathroom all of her own). She will have a bit more space then, and might decide that she wants more of her stuff with her.

The home has a very busy social calendar, with at least two or three events each day. Mother can attend or not, as she chooses. So far, she’s gone to the Gospel Singalong, the Ice Cream Social, and to the Coffee & Donuts thing. She says she enjoys herself, and is making friends. Honestly it’s kind of hard to know if that’s true or not as she does tend to live in her own alternate reality. But at least she is not roaming the halls anymore calling for us to come take her home.

Between the four of us kids, and all the grandchildren & friends of hers, we try to have at least one person check up on her each day. Her mail still comes to me (we opted to not have her mailing address changed, at least for the first few months), so I go over almost every day to hand deliver it to her.

A Christmas Miracle

Each year for Christmas, Bryan goes out to Bells Nursery in Anchorage to get us a Christmas Tree. This year’s tree was a nice 6’ tree that fit just perfectly into the corner of our living room. It did have a slight tilt to it, but we decided that just added character to it. We put it up a couple weeks before The Day and took it down on New Year’s Day – so in all it was up and decorated for a good three weeks.

As we were taking it down, something fell out of it onto the floor: a SNAIL !!!

We assumed it was dead, so threw it into the trash bin and continued with our task of putting all the decorations away for the year. I did, however, send a text to my sister – because she loves snails and has had several of them as pets. She told me that it was most likely still alive and convinced me to rescue it for her.

So, I channeled my mother (who routinely digs through the garbage looking for god knows what) and dove into our trash can. I did eventually manage to find the little guy – and delivered it to Noel in hopes that she was right.

And guess what = she WAS right! It IS alive and doing quite well now, happily rehomed in a small terrarium at my sister’s house. We have decided to name her Belle, in honor of the nursery we got her from.

Funny Things She Says

Mother’s dementia has taken not only her memories but also some of her words from her. To compensate for not knowing the names of things anymore, she comes up with some pretty inventive alternates! Here are a few of them:

• She wanted to make toast so asked if “the tanning machine for food” was working (the toaster)
• The Senior Center was handing out “Crunch Sticks” the other day (granola bars)
• My sister made her some “Sauce Water” for her lunches (broth)
• Bryan cooked some “fish cookies” for dinner the other day (salmon patties)
• The city was out “dirtying the roads” after the snowstorm (sanding the roads)

Update on Mother

I think it’s time for an update on Mother. Her mental health has deteriorated quite rapidly following that bump on the head that she had a while ago. I was warned this might happed by my Uncle, who had just gone through that same scenario with my Aunt. That warning prepared me a little bit, but it’s still very upsetting to witness first-hand. 

Her grasp of time is mostly gone. She is very confused about the darkness and does not believe us when we tell her it’s going to get light again in a couple hours. For her, a couple minutes are like days, so the concept of “hours” is almost unfathomable. Her sleep pattern is so erratic, she’s up for hours in the middle of the night. By the time Bryan get’s up at 4:00 she’s already awake and thinking the world is coming to an end.

We got her this cool clock the other day, in hopes that it will help. We have been pointing at it every time she asks what day or what time it is, and she is learning to look at it herself. The clock came from a non-profit organization in Anchorage that provides technology for assisted living conditions. They also gave us alarms for the front door and the garage door, so we get notified whenever she opens the door. This happens at least once or twice a week, usually around 2:00 in the morning. These items are on loan: She can use them for as long as she needs to, and then we will return them so they can be rehomed to the next person who needs them.

Her dreams are also quite strong. Often times, she’ll wake up (sort of) thinking there is a cat upstairs that needs rescued, or that somebody had called out for her to find them a flashlight. The other day, she got in her car and went to visit “the Bargers”. She told us they live right across the street from the high school. For those of you who don’t know: Barger is her maiden name, and we live right across the street from the high school. So, effectively, she was going to go visit herself. We tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t have it. So instead, Bryan hopped into my car and followed her around until she finally wound her way back to the house. Once we got her settled back down and everyone calm again, he told me that her driving was very erratic, she had not stopped at any stop sign or stop light, and her speed was anything from 5 mph to 75 mph.

After consulting with family members, it was decided that she is no longer allowed to drive at all. We disabled her vehicle and had her license revoked. She is not happy, to say the least. She was so mad at Bryan when he explained what the certified letter from the DMV meant (we did it legally, so she really does not have a license anymore) she actually threatened to shoot him. I am very upset about that, to tell you the truth. That is just NOT acceptable. We had taken her guns away from her years ago, but still = not cool.

In the midst of all this drama, we actually had started the process to get her into the Pioneer Home. As you might recall, this is our second attempt – so this time we’re going about it a little differently. We are telling her rather than asking her. She needs to get in there so she can get the care she needs. Thankfully she is excited about it and wants to go. At least she wants to go during her more lucid moments. In her not-so-lucid moments, she’s all over the map. She told Bryan this morning that she has to move because they took her license away from her.

There is a lot of paperwork involved. Kelly and I have been slogging our way though it together, with help from Bryan and the rest of the family. Lots of doctor appointments and visits to the lawyer looking for her will. It’s all very overwhelming at times.

But – we finally got through it all and turned in the stack of paperwork, and we now have an actual date for her move! She will become a resident of The Pioneer Home on Thursday, January 9^th!!!

She will be placed in a shared room on a temporary basis but will be moved into a single room once some reconstruction work is complete. That could be as much as four months from now, but at least she will be in the home and taken care of by people who know what they are doing. I have asked if we can go look at her space on Monday so that we have a better idea of what she can bring with her – but I have not yet heard back from them.

These are all very big, life-changing events that are scary and difficult to comprehend in the best of times. Mother is doing the best she can to deal with all the emotions that come bubbling up. If you have any prayers to spare, you might send them to us!

Willow Weekend Getaway

By now you all know that we go on little mini vacations each month. This is kind of a requirement for our mental health, but also just a fun way to get out and see more of our home state. I try to pick places we’ve not been to yet for most of our summer getaways, sticking closer to home in the winter months.

It started out as a winter thing: he likes to go skiing but didn’t want to leave me behind for a weekend, so I went with him and just hung out at the hotel or wherever. Eventually, we started renting from AirB&B or VRBO so that we had our own kitchen. And that soon turned into a Once-A-Month thing.

We have gotten quite good at preparing for these mini vacations: I have a generic list of things to remember to bring with us, a generic proposed menu, and several totes filled with various items we may or may not need, depending on where we’re going. For example, one tote has our monitor, a portable DVD player, a set of speakers, and all the cords you could ever possibly need to hook everything up. I just pick out a handful of movies, grab that tote, and we’re good to go!

Meals are always a priority (of course) and we have several staple recipes to choose from: Brussel Sprout Hash or Baked Oatmeal for breakfast, Steak & Mushrooms or Spaghetti for dinner, that sort of thing. Once we decide on the menu, then we have to pack the ingredients together – one tote with dry goods, the other tote with items that need to be kept cold. On very rare occasions we have to make sure to bring that special pot or pan required to cook the meal: either that or just plan on making do with whatever we find at the place we’re renting that time.  

This weekend we ended up out in Willow, about 26 miles north of us and a good 15 degrees colder. Our hosts run a team of dogs, have a little café/coffee shop, and offer up this sweet spot for tourists (and locals) to hang their hat for a while. They were very accommodating, making sure we had everything we might need up to and including tons of firewood for the woodstove! We were very toasty warm – almost a little too warm sometimes!

They also let me bring the kittens with us, which made me very happy. I love having them around as I tend to worry too much about them if they have to be left behind. They travel quite well and seem to enjoy exploring the new places we go, and I always try to remember to bring some toys and a scratching post for them along with their blankets, their litter box, and some special treats for them to eat.

This was a holiday weekend, so we extended our stay an extra day – we arrived on Friday and didn’t have to leave until Monday! Plenty of time to work on the projects we brought with us: card making for me, computer work for him.

A Halloween to Remember (NOT)

One of the advantages of being a writer is that you get to choose which reality you write about, in effect changing history! I am claiming that right at this time, because I simply do not want to remember the horrible events that took place this year – and choose rather to focus on the tiny bit of happy events instead. Suffice to say that we may not ever have Halloween at our house again.

It started out quite well. He got full-size candy bars to hand out to the kids. We got pumpkins carved to put out on the front porch. Mother even helped sort out the seeds so that I could roast them (let's be honest: he roasted them for me).

And this is where I’m going to stop. It just went downhill from here on out, so I choose to edit that part out.

*Edit to Add: a person with Dementia/Alzheimer's needs an environment that is calm and routine. The excitement of having over 100 strangers ringing our doorbell that night was too much for Mother to handle. She had a very bad episode. We will not be putting her through that again, ever.

Soft Water

We have had issues with the water in this place since we moved in here back in 2018. We’re on City Water, which apparently is what you’d call “Hard Water,” meaning that it leaves a coating of calcium on everything it touches. Over time this builds up to the point where either it flakes off in big chunks or it clogs up the appliances so bad that you eventually have to buy a new one. We are currently on our third dishwasher and our second fridge.

We finally threw the towel in, however, after having both our Fridge and our dishwasher brake down on us at the same time. A quick call to Paragon Mechanical got us on their books to install a new Water Softener! This is not a cheap fix, by any means – but hopefully it will be money well spent if we never have to buy another dishwasher again! After replacing this broken one, of course.

You might recall that we had a new water heater installed a few years back (July of 2022 to be exact) which required that the two old ones be removed. One of those old hot water tanks was in our Laundry Room and the other one was down in the crawl space; both were replaced by one new one in the garage. The space left behind in the Laundry Room was supposed to be filled with shelving for my canning supplies, but it turns out that THAT is the optimal place to put a Water Softener system, so I no longer get to have new shelving.

Paragon Mechanical is very good at what they do: the two guys working on our little project were very professional and efficient, also both were very polite and considerate of Mother who “supervised” their every move. I have to admit, however, that what really endeared them to me was that they truly loved my Viktor – who absolutely LOVES to do “Guy Stuff” and helped out all day long.

So now we have this spiffy new water softener system and are finally going to replace our broken appliances, using the Black Friday sales event coming soon. Honestly, I just want the spending to stop for a while. Please! We’ve spent so much money on this place…

Zucchini Zoodles with Shrimp

Bryan made one of my favorite meals for me last night: Zucchini Zoodles with Shrimp and Capers! I love it, and if you follow the Weight Watchers plan, its only about 1 point per serving! Or at least it was about 6 years ago. Their plan changes periodically, so I really can’t keep up with them. Regardless, it’s a very tasty and healthy meal.

I splurged several years ago and got myself a spiralizer. One of the best purchases EVER! I highly recommend getting one – but I don’t recommend getting the one I got. It’s very weak and can pretty much only do zucchini and nothing else. I’d like to try potatoes and/or broccoli one day but will have to wait until we get a sturdier brand.

For the meal, we spiralized 3 medium zucchini and sautéed them in lemon juice with the capers until just done. You want them to be firm but cooked.

While that was cooking, we mixed a bit of olive oil with a generous helping of minced garlic, and then added the shrimp. There was a special at the store on shrimp, so he bought way more than we really needed – but now I have shrimp to nibble on for my lunch today! Pop it in the air fryer till it’s done (I like my shrimp cooked a bit more than he does).

Add the shrimp to the zucchini mixture and mix it all together. Serve in a bowl and eat it while it’s hot!

Sheep Mountain Lodge

We had a lovely weekend get-away this month, driving about an hour and a half up north to the Sheep Mountain Lodge. They offer four different accommodation types: Premier Cabins, Classic Cabins, Guesthouse Rooms, and their newly renovated Mountain House. For our weekend, I rented one of their Classic Cabins with a Queen bed, a private bathroom (with shower), and a small kitchenette.

When we got there, we discovered that they had given us a surprise upgrade, putting us in a Premier Cabin instead! We were totally okay with that, except that we had packed all our cooking stuff expecting to have to cook our meals out on the deck. The Premier Cabins offer a full kitchen with all the pots & pans we could use, so we just didn’t unpack the camp stove.

One of the reasons why I love the Sheep Mountain Lodge so much is because they let me bring my kittens with me when we stay there! Our upgraded cabin gave us a lot more room for them to romp and play, so they were quite happy too. I set up my table with all my crafting stuff, Bryan set up our portable DVD player with the monitor & speakers, and we were golden.

We checked in on Friday and got settled in. By the time Saturday rolled around a huge snowstorm had blown in! We’re talking horizontal snow, with visibility down to just a few feet in front of your face. Bryan bundled himself up to go out and see if he could find some bunnies but ended up back at the cabin just a few short hours later. The blizzard was so bad we thought we might not be able to get home on Sunday even and talked about the possibility of having to rent another night’s stay.

Thankfully, the state’s road maintenance crews were able to get the roads sanded and the downed trees removed in time for us to get home as planned. Never a dull moment up here, that’s for sure.

Photos After A Trip

One of the first things I do after I get home from a trip is to download all the photos I took, getting Bryan to download his as well. I then put them into a folder with the date and name of the destination and file it all into the Master Folder where I keep all my pictures.

For this most recent trip, we had arranged to create a Google Drive to be able to share our photos with everybody on the expedition, so my next task was to take a copy of all our photos and go through them to weed out the undesirable ones (out of focus, caught my thumb, multiple shots of the same thing, embarrassing facial expressions, etc…) and upload them onto the Google Drive to share with everyone. Once that was done, I went through the photos from all the other members of the expedition and downloaded the ones I wanted, saving them into their own folder inside the Master Folder holding my own pictures.

Then I created a copy of my own pictures and went through them all, picking out the ones that encapsulated the highlights of our trip – roughly 10 for our week in the rental car and another 10 or so on the Earthwatch Expedition. These were then posted on Facebook to give people a taste of what our trip was like.

Creating the posts for my blog required a bit more work. I created yet another copy of all my photos and then weeded through them all to come up with two or three photos from each event/place we’d been to. I then started in on the narrative, researching on the internet to find the specifics of each place. I ended up with one post on the week in our rental car, one post on the Expedition we were on, one post on all the food we ate while we were there (the food was so good I just had to highlight it all), one post with book recommendations that the Lead Scientist had made, and one post on the Foodie Tour we’d taken.

I decided to create two photo books this time, since it really was like two separate vacations: one for the Earthwatch Expedition and one for the week in our rental car. That required yet another copy of all the photos that needed to be weeded through yet again, to ensure that I got the best photos to create the narrative I was going for in each book. Thankfully I’d done most of the research already for the blog posts, but there were a couple items that required more information. I organized the photos by date and then put them into subfolders by event. Arranging them all into the program that creates the books for me took several weeks, to ensure that it was just right and that I had no grammatical or spelling errors. A click of the button had them both ordered, and they are now sitting proudly on my shelf ready for whomever wishes to look through them.

Once that was taken care of, I then had to create – you guessed it – ANOTHER copy of all our photos, this time going through them to find the perfect ones to update my Power-Point Presentation. I am scheduled to give a talk on our trip on the last Saturday of October to my sister’s church group. It’s a potluck as well, so I not only get to talk about my favorite subject, but I also get to eat lots of delicious food!

My final task pertaining to the photographs is to create a set of pictures to host a Family Movie Night so we can show our families all the (best) pictures of our Iceland trip. I probably work on that tomorrow, while he watches the football game.

Wait... What?!?

Way back on Saturday, June 8th, I took Mother to the Colony Days Parade in downtown Palmer. We set up at her favorite spot right in front of Noel’s Salon (which actually is no longer Noel’s Salon as she sold it a few months ago) with a couple chairs and a lap rug to keep her warm. People came over to chat with her while I went and got her a cup of coffee from the café nearby.

Once the parade started, she sat and enjoyed watching all the people go by. It was a good one this year, too, with lots of entrants ranging from horses and dogs to antique cars and marching bands.

One car in particular caught her eye as it was just covered in hundreds of bumper stickers of all kinds. One of which was a Bigfoot sticker that had the silhouette on it. 

She watched it drive past, then turned to me and said, “They really do walk like that, you know.”

I looked at her and said, “What?”

“With their hand turned backwards. They really do walk that way.”

“What??!!??”

“We had one when I was a kid. The men would leave food for it, and it would come take it. It must have had a family, but I never saw them.”

“WHAT???!!!???”

But then the horses came by, and she was off on another subject. I never did get anymore information out of her.

Strangest story yet…

A Walk in the Woods with Friends

I have known Heather and Tammy now for well over 10 years, but it’s been a while since we last all got together. Thanks to Heather for organizing this: we all met at the Eagle River Nature Center last weekend for a wonderful stroll through the woods!

The weather could not have been better – it was chilly, but with proper clothing we had no problem. Honestly, we all warmed up a bit along the way, so ended up peeling off layers. We had all planned for that, however, so it did not hinder us in the slightest.

Both Tammy and Heather had their dogs along with them, and both dogs did very well. Several other people were on the trails along with us, most of whom also had their own dogs with them. Thankfully all the meet-ups were congenial with no problems.

I have to admit this is my least favorite time of year. The trees have all dropped their leaves and everything looks so “dead” and dismal. I know, I know… it’s the natural progression of nature and winter will soon cover everything in a blanket of white.

But it’s always good to visit with friends!

New Lights in the Craft Room!

The lighting in my craft room has never been the best, by any means, and lately they have begun to fail. So, we did a little research and found some replacement fixtures to brighten up the place and make it easier for me to do my thing up here.

Bryan spent the entire day removing the old fixtures and installing the new ones. It never goes as easily as you think it will, so of course he had a few unexpected issues to deal with.

But overall, I think I like it! The fixtures are LED, so theoretically the bulbs will last longer. They certainly are sleek & slender and are about twice the size of the original ones. They are also dimmable. I will (I think) have a remote to operate that function and will keep it here on my desk at work.

All in all, I believe that was $300.00 well spent.

Our Purple Bed

After years of uncomfortable if not downright painful sleep on a very old mattress (the darned this was well over 25 years old, I’m thinking) we finally bit the bullet and got ourselves a new bed! Taking advantage of the Labor Day weekend sales, we headed on down to Mattress Firm in Wasilla and purchased a Purple mattress and frame.

We opted to pick it up ourselves rather than pay extra for delivery – so of course it arrived while Bryan was out of town. He got home 3 days later, however, so we didn’t wait too long to pick it up. Looking at the boxes in his truck, it’s hard to imagine that an entire queen size bed fits in there! The boxes were certainly heavy enough, though. And once we opened everything up & assembled all the parts – we have ourselves a new bed!

Purple technology is somewhat similar to the Memory Foam stuff in that it takes a good 48 hours to completely recover from being stuffed into a teeny-tiny (relatively speaking) box – so I can’t say for sure yet how much of an improvement it is on my sleep – but I can say I like the look of it. It’s very European, somehow.