Where is Everyone?
 

You better not be sick and you better be having a good time out there, 'cause,
I needs some support and companionship.:thud::partytime2: :Demonstration::mf_swordfight::Sinking: :icon_twisted: :Wave-Hello:
:yahoo::hissyfit::Trapeze 2:

I'm here, but perhaps everyone else is out enjoying this beautiful weather. I went out this morning for my fifteen minutes of sun, so I'm back inside now.

Hi Sal. :)

I'm here trying to make myself do something. Not succeeding.

Yesterday was the Will Signing Ceremony. That's what the lawyer called it. I had to get into downtown by 1PM. I decided to take an air-conditioned cab instead of bus and subway because of the heat and humidity.

Well, I got the only cab driver in Boston that did not know, so he said, that there was a Red Sox game! We crawled down the worst street to use n that situation.

Then, at Charles and Beacon, nothing was moving because of fire apparatus near the State House. I got out of the cab and walked 6 or 7 blocks to 11 Beacon St.

Needless to say, my arms and legs are jelly.

Love you,
Be Back Soon-ish, ANN

here i am sally.
i'm dealing with my back issues and can't sit here very long.

are you ok?

I've been lurking...

I have been having a lot of difficulty dealing with the invasion of DGD, grand-dog, grand-cat along with retired DH and my own dog...I blew my top the other evening and said some very nasty things:(
I always let things build up inside and then blow up...which makes all of my issues invalid, since my emotional behavior then becomes the issue...

Anyway, I am trying to breathe, let go and not worry about the next two weeks which will see my oldest son's (3rd) wedding, with an invasion of DS 36 and DIL, DGS, and their dog. Then we will head up to the cabin after the wedding and be there for several days...a two bedroom cabin with a screened in porch and one window AC unit. Three dogs, a cat, two grand babies, and 7 adults...I am going to have my gas tank full and stay in the car with the AC on in the garage;)

Aw, Sally!:hug::hug: What's going on? You know we are here for you.

Helloooo...... from the other side (of the equator) ....how can I help :D?

Seriously, are you ok?

:hug:

Just wondering where everyone is and if I have bad breath or something..:D:p:D

There are still a bunch, who haven't checked in....Erika, Kelly, Wiz, Mike,
Eddie, TX...etc....etc....:grouphug:

Hi Sally, I guess I am an 'etc':D hope you are OK.

Hi Sally! :D

No Doydie, you are not an etc... because
you visit me almost every day..Thanks:hug:

Hi Frog.:):hug:

Sally I would love to actually visit you and sit under that tree. and look at that body of water int he distance. It is beautiful

I wish all of us could sit and visit under that tree and look at the water. It sounds so relaxing and fun. :grouphug:

e
 

Doydie!!! What body of water? We just have Rivers down here in
SW Ohio. The Great Lakes/Erie are up Nawth.:D

I'm here too, Sally. The heat is really doing a number on me. My legs feel like they each weigh 500 pounds. I'm just staying inside for the most part.

another etc. checking in-

my disabled kid sister (we raise her) is off for the summer. Needless to say she sucks up a lot of time. Like young kids she feels she does not have to do anything and should be entertained non stop. Remind me again when school starts back up...

That and heat is zapping me anytime I venture out of the house. I may just be the palest person who lives in a beach town :cool:

How are you doing??

Hi Sally. I've been busy with a potpourri of things, and taking naps on the couch between activities, usually 2 or 3 out-cold naps because of the heat. Yes, hot here too in northern New Mexico, too much sun, so I have to wear my Solumbra clothing every time I go out. Which is also a little hotter than I like, to have to be covered up so much. I am sun sensitive as well as heat sensitive. I live here because my son and grandkids live here, and my late husband wanted to live here part time to be near them...but a fire and consequences made us full time here. the climate is actually good in some ways because the air is crystal clear except when we have forest fire smoke. No smoke so far this year....I will evacuated again (fourth time) if I have to.
Praying for no smoke this year.
I have been working on my medieval genealogy when I have a moment, and when the printer is working. Found more stuff from a genealogist who is interested in that 12th century ancestor, Eschyna de Molle, who was married 3 times and each time she married founded a new dynasty. I had not heard about the Douglass/Scot dynasty, but obviously they are "half siblings many times removed", a new facet of interest. Their descendant Prince William of Gloucester had porphyria as I do...but then he was also descended from the Stuarts, who were famous for porph, so who knows which of his many lines gave it to him.
So, Sally, in addition to that I have been doing the usual housecleaning, paper filing, and recovering from removal of a large basal cell on the back of my leg which the dermo never found....Physician's Assistant removed it, and it had to have wound dressings changed every other day.
I too dream of a tree to sit under and water to view...as in my hometown of Seattle.

GA - checking in
 

Hi Sally and Everyone,

I'm here in hot (90's), humid (70%+), occasionally rainy but VERY green, Georgia. It's so hot my dogs don't even want to go outside. Every outside plant is growing like it's on steroids.

Nursing Homes (Scratch that. Now they call them Skilled Nursing Facilities)

Yesterday my husband and I had two appointments to visit possible nursing homes for me. We started with a small, 6-patient, private home-turned-personal-care-home owned and run by a mother and her married daughter. The owners were great. The ranch home was older - probably 1960's - sort of like "The Ranch That Time Forgot", but it was neat and clean.

The second one was a larger, circa 1970's, 120-140 bed, actual Skilled Care Facility. The place was bustling with people moving everywhere. Patients, doing what I describe as "spider-walking" down the halls while seated in their wheelchairs, janitors (Sanitation Engineers?) busy cleaning, sweeping, mopping. LPNs, CNAs, Activities Personnel, all busy, busy, busy doing their "thing" with, to, or around the spider-walkers.

We will be visiting several other places over the next few weeks, too. I'm making myself a diary of sorts to jot down their state rating, their rates, my first impression of each one, its plusses and minuses. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.

I would gladly ask anyone who is interested, to follow me along on this journey. And share your personal experiences, if any.

Good luck and best wishes msblu1s, on your search.
You are one of my heroes here..:hug:

Sounds like you have the right approach msbluis. Hubbie has done karaoke in a place that is small and family operated and they truly treat all the residents like family. But my MIL was in a regular nursing home. It wasn't owned by a big conglomerate. Sometimes I think you have to watch out for them. yes, do got ot he sites where you can check citations, accreditations, reviews, family reviews, maybe even word of mouth. Go to them and notice the smell, what the residents are doing. Are there any activities like outings, cookouts, rehab and physical therapy, volunteers. My MIL was in one who did rehab to home and they had a kitchen where they helped people get around a kitchen and relearn how to cook. So they used this kitchen a lot of times for the residents to gather and with the help of the activities director regularly baked things. Look at their menu, hopefully they have one. Talk to patients and or family members. What is their ratio of nurses to patients? How many RNs and LPNs. What kind of pharmacy provisions, do they have to wait the next day for new medicines to start. In house physicians. A whole host of questions, most learned form my MIL being in a nursing home for about 10 years before dying. Oh, is there a hospice that treats patients there if needed. MILs did and they came on board the last two days and it sure made it easier on all of us knowing we had that advocate

GREAT suggestions, Doydie
 

I definately appreciate your comments and I'll make them a part of my checklist. Thanks, Doydie!

My MIL was in a nursing home for years that I never could visit (it was out of state; I need too many assistive devices for travel and ADL's) but hubby went as often as he could. She was in KS; we are in GA. In addition, hubby talked with her weekly for several years until she passed at age 92. It may have been pretty typical for a home its size, but hubby felt it was so depressing to him. His dad is in the same home, they tallk weekly and he seems to be doing good. He's also 92, and he was bragging about his "girlfriend" he's gone to lunch with at a local restaurant. She's 30 years younger than him, but I say, "Good for both of them!" :winky:

I am here, I Am Here, I AM HERE! :grouphug:

I CaN'T HEAR YoUUUU!!!!:D

Hi Sal -- Still here. :) Sorry you're feeling lonely. I think summer slows everyone WAY down. It's too &#%¥ hot!

Hi Ya Natalie..:hug:

Hi Sally! I have not been well. I have been having horrible pains and not online a lot. Been in bed more than anything. Summer is evil I tell ya!

e hea
 

You're right Kitty, Summer is evil to us now. It use to be a time to which I looked
forward. Now I dread it. Even with A/C, you can still feel the pressure of heat and
humidity.:eek:

Come here as you feel up to it and just read and say thanks, if you aren't up
to posting.:hug:

That is what I say to you all.
"Come here as you feel up to it and just read
and say thanks, if you aren't up to posting::hug:

After growing up in a snowy cold climate, I never thought I would say I LOVE winter and being cold. But I do now! I have so much more energy in winter, it's shocking.

Also I hate feeling trapped in the house because it's too hot to leave. A/C is not my favorite because of the artificial climate. I like fresh air but can't get any in the summer. :(

So here's to the end of summer! Can't come soon enough.

I'm right their with you Natalie..:hug:

Here I am!! Working long hours and wondering how I manage to do it! :o I haven't forgotten you! I think about all of my friends here each day! God bless you all and :grouphug: :grouphug:

Hi ya Wizzy!!!:hug:

I am here! Not very often lately...but I am still around! We have been in the middle of moving our office, and while we have been kicked out of our old space, the new space isn't ready yet. So I have been working from home for a month.

We took a vacation to Maine to hold a memorial service and bury my aunt's ashes back in June. She grew up living in a town called East Blue every summer and passed away back in December. She wanted to be buried in Blue Hill with her parents. We managed to make it out to Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, to a Red Sox game at Fenway, and out to Acadia National Park along the way.

Among all that other stuff that kept me from hanging around here, I finally got serious back at the end of February and changed the way I was eating to avoid going diabetic like the rest of my family. Since February 22, I have lost 59 pounds and I am 18 pounds from reaching my goal of 190 pounds. I am now lighter than I have been in about 15 years, and my diabetes control value has already lower than it has been in the last five years. I was able to get off of one blood pressure medicine, and will likely get taken off my other BP med in the next week or so. I have gone down 4 inches on the waist of my pants and I am about to have to go down another size.

I am still riding my bike and doing spin classes. Rode 36 miles in a little over 2 hours last Sunday in preparation for the Katy Flatland Century ride. Probably doing the 42 mile route, but we will see how the heat treats us. We are starting around 6:45am, so hopefully will be done before it gets too hot. I hope all of you are doing well and staying active where you can!

Way to go Batman!!!

I'm here too. Have been away from home off and on, looking after my step mom and helping my Dad out. Talk about the blind leading the blind. Even so, I'm in better shape than she is at this time and it is too much for Dad (80 years old), to take on being a care giver 24/7. She suffers with sclerodermia and chronic interstitial lung disease because of it.

I've been coming home, harvesting things from the garden, preparing them into dishes, freezing them and then taking them down there so that they have good nutritious food to eat. By the time I get my own place back in order, I'm getting ready to head down to be with them again.
What a summer!

It has been hotter than normal in our region so there are lots of wildfires. They have them in their area too, so there is heavy smoke in both areas. The smoke is a problem for my step mom so she is needing to be on oxygen.

The smoke isn't great for me either but I've been coping OK. The biggest problem that doesn't seem to be coming around is ongoing spasticity on the left side of my body from a mild stroke that I had a while back. For the most part, the rest of the problems that I was having have been gradually settling down. Not much I can do about the ongoing spasticity as it doesn't respond to Baclofen and I can't take much Ibuprofen for pain these days either because of the risk of ulcer recurrence. At least I can still walk and drive.

We finally got some rain yesterday and that took the smoke down a bit. It was so bad on Thursday that it was actually snowing ash; leaving a light dusting of the stuff on everything.

I'm heading back down to my folks in a couple days and will be gone for a week or so...unless they get an evacuation order. They were pretty close to getting one on Thursday because of a fire that started in the forest behind their subdivision. No such risk at my place so far.

Hope that everyone is doing OK.
Miss all of you and I'm hoping that everything settles down at my end so that I can sit back, relax and chat on here like I used to. But for now, my focus is on helping my folks and taking care of myself so that I can do that.

With love, Erika

Hey TX..:highfive:..Nice going on the weight loss. I didn't know that
you were overweight.:eek:. How did you ride that bike so well?

Erika, so sorry about your Parent's problems and your relentless
spasticity.:(. Just so glad that you can find the time to check in,
now and then.:) Hope things get better and slow up a dash for
you..:hug:

I know I have been gone for a long while. I have been sleeping my days away and up all night. I picked up an old hobby, crocheting and now I'm making everyone afghans. I'm going broke doing that but now I'm addicted to that and when I wake up that is the first thing on my mind, not food.

My DR now have me on the 40mg of copaxone and it is ok if I don't forget to take on Monday. Lol

Erika, wow-what a summer for you:hug:
Hope your step mom can get some comfort and relief from her sxs...and does your area allow use of cannabis for spasticity? It really does help. It would be better to use edibles for long-term relief than smoking it IMHO...in any case, I hope you can get some relief as well...:hug:

Hello and lots of :grouphug: everyone!

I've been SO busy... returning to full time work, bought a house with hubby, we're now packing and getting ready to move the end of the month.

Life's crazy. Hope everyone's been doing well (or as well as possible!).

Hi Laura. Welcome back. Missed you.:hug: