Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2003. Mattie was a year and a half old and I think this photo is hysterical. I must have snapped it because I was capturing Mattie's fascination with a squirrel on our balcony. Mind you we lived on the third floor, so seeing a squirrel on our actual balcony was a rare occurrence.
Quote of the day: You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp. ~ Anne Lamott
It was a busy day, one of which I couldn't have accomplished without Peter. Peter took our car into the shop at 7am. It needed new brakes and other service. While he was managing that, I was up, getting breakfast together, and dealing with my dad's morning needs. By the time Peter got back from getting the car serviced, he took my dad to the memory care center.
I had an hour at that point to get work done before I had to take my mom for her physical therapy appointment. I spent that time catching up on all Foundation acknowledgment letters for donations Mattie Miracle received in the last four months. Normally I process these letters in a more timely fashion, but now I am lucky I can get anything done. Despite that, if someone contributes on-line, I make it my business to send a thank you email within 24 hours.
I am trying to empty my plate of a lot of Foundation admin work over the next few weeks, as I want to now devote my attention to my licensure CEUs. In theory I should be doing them periodically, but given my daily routine, I am lucky I am doing them at all.
I did go with my mom to her physical therapy appointment. The therapist thinks my mom has plateaued and therefore should stop therapy. My mom has two more sessions with this therapist and then I told her that we would stop and give my mom a break. What she doesn't know is I already got another script for therapy and I am transferring my mom to my dad's physical therapist in January. I am hoping my dad's therapist can make more progress with my mom. My dad's therapist is high energy and a creative thinker about issues and problems. My mom's therapist wants her to use a rollator to walk, and my mom has no interest in this. I want to respect my mom's wishes, but I do think we need strategies to address her balance and walking gait.
After therapy, my mom likes going out for a snack and hot tea. So I took her out for about two hours. She enjoys these outings and the opportunity to talk, check her phone, and be more relaxed without my dad around. My dad is very high maintenance and trying to eat together is becoming more and more challenging.
I am also happy that I was able to finish updating our holiday mailing database, we got the mailing labels printed this weekend, and stuffed 400 envelopes. I will be dragging these mailings to the post office tomorrow. December is the Foundation's annual drive and that corresponds with our mass mailing to our loyal supporters. There are many moving parts to this mass mailing and back in October we started the process. That is how long it takes me to get it together.
In addition to all of this, our garage door stopped working last night. It is a big deal because this is the primary way I get my parents out of the house. The garage has the best set of stairs out of the house, because it has a railing on both sides of the staircase. Not being able to get out of the garage is a big problem, especially in the cold. Last night, I literally called the company, Garage Door Repair, on their emergency line. I hear their advertisements all the time on the radio! All I can say is they have been fantastic to work with (they called me back two minutes after I left them a message) and as I am typing this, the door is being repaired.
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