It's G-Day

The day scheduled as the end of the Grandma Project. The end of the occupation.

I'm excited!

Last Saturday we (Dad, William, Liz, and I) moved (way too much of) her furniture over to Robinwood. This Saturday we move her bedroom stuff from my house. Tonight she spends her first night at Robinwood, and we spend our first night alone as a nuclear family again. Can I get a "WoooHooo!"?!

I say that this is the end of the Grandma Project, but really it isn't. It's just a new chapter in the saga. Sure, no longer will I have to deal with the blaring TV, the twice a day game of Twenty Questions (coming and going), the continued scuffing of my brand new furniture from her rolly walker thingy, etc. Nope, now I'll have to deal with constant demands to come and see her, phone calls complaining about how lonely she is, and numerous, frequent trips to Wendell to visit, take her things, help her shop, etc.

Oh well, Liz is here to start moving.

Oh boy!

Let's get this thing started!

Three Times in Two Days

One day, really.

Just slightly over a 24 hour time span.

That's how many times mGma fell between Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening.

The first time she fell in the kitchen. I wrote about that already, wondering how these falls seem to (fortunately? strangely?) time themselves to occur on the rare occasions that I'm at home.

The second time she fell was at 6 a.m. Sunday. She fell out of bed. Rolled out of bed, I suppose, is more like it. Whatever she did, she ended up on the floor, hollering, early Sunday a.m. The one Sunday that I probably could have slept for a few more hours (unlike most Sundays, which have become my insomnia days here recently). She's lucky I am a mother and, thus, have Mom-Dar ears. Her bedroom is on the opposite side of the house, and her door was shut AND my door was shut, but because I am a trained, experienced mother I can discern, in my sleep, between a freight train bearing down on the house (something not worth waking up for) and a muted cry for help (something for which I will immediately bolt upright). Had it just been Donald and William in the house, well, she still might be lying on the floor today. But fortunately I was there to haul her (rather substantial) hiney up off the floor.

The third time she fell was Sunday evening. She was in her room, getting ready for bed, and simply missed her chair and ended up on her butt again. It's not a surprise that she should miss like that, since she doesn't really sit so much as she sort of aims and crashes down in a chair. So yet again, I went and scraped her up off of the floor.

I told her then that was ENOUGH. The third time had to be IT. No more falling, dammit. I'm going to pull my back out lifting her up. And one of these days she's really going to hurt herself.

What is this all about, do you suppose?

Three times? In one weekend? And only when someone was home.

Is it merely coincidence? Or is this her way of saying that she doesn't really want to go to Robinwood? Or is it her way of getting my attention, since I refuse to vegetate in the living room, staring at the TV with her? Or maybe it's that she's decided since someone is home, she doesn't need to be quite as careful with herself; there's someone there to pick her up, so being a klutz is acceptable?

I'm thinking that it's a little of all of the above. With a strong leaning towards not truly wanting to go to Robinwood.

I'm so afraid of that. That she's going to get over there and love it for awhile, but then three or four months down the line, after I have redecorated her room and gotten extremely comfortable having my house back to myself, she's going to decide she's miserable there and want to come back. And I told her she can come back.

It'll be interesting to see what the future holds in that regard.

Will she like Robinwood? Will she make friends? Will she, perhaps, maybe, possibly be happy?

I'm no believer in miracles, so I'm not going to hold my breath for any of that. But the possibility does exist, so there's hope.

This Saturday has been designated as moving day.

Stay tuned.

I'm Baaaaaaack. . .

Jeez, I am such a bad blogger! I do this with journals and diaries, too. I always start out with the best of intentions, saying to myself that I'm going to be disciplined and write a little bit each day. Then, for a few days, sometimes even a few weeks, I'm very, very good about it, jotting down facts about the day, about what's going in life, etc.

But then one day sitting down and jotting something about my already crappy, busy day seems like one more chore that has to be done. So I don't write. I wait a few days and then I write a little when I'm feeling better. And I write for the next couple of days. And then I have a busy, crappy day again--or sometimes just busy, not necessarily crappy, too--and writing becomes, once again, SOMETHING ELSE TO DO. And so, having turned it into a chore, I react to it like I do with all other chores: I loathe it. And despise it. And only do it begrudgingly. And then I think to myself, why do I bother? If it's not fun to write, don't write. I mean, duh. So then I don't write for a long time (in this case, over a month) and then I feel bad and I miss it and, because I have so many fascinating, important things to say, I feel I'm doing society some disservice by withholding all this literary prowess from my adoring fans. So I decide to write again.

So here I am.

At home, on a sunny, hot Saturday on the first day of July. I haven't so much as opened an outside door today. No, wait, that's not true, I did open the front door so that the cat could find his way out as I herded him towards the foyer with the spray bottle. But I don't really count that, since I opened it and then immediately ran back to the living in order to keep the cat from going down the hall, and then, once the idiot cat went out, I shut it with my foot.

Anyway, point is, I haven't ventured far from my bed today. Not that I've been a lazy slug all day, because I haven't, I've actually been pretty productve. More like a sated mole. I got up around 9. . .thirty? I don't know. Nine-something. Started doing work stuff (trying to avoid working on the fourth) and kept doing it until noon. Then I read a bit in my new book. (I shouldn't buy books when I have all these classes, but I couldn't control the urge the other day and bought a fluffy little beach book, which shouldn't distract me too much from my studies, since it'll be so much fun, I'll read the whole thing in less than two days.) Then I took a shower, and now here I am.

I thought I might go to Lois's house in a bit. Donald is at the store, Lizzie is with Billy, William is at work, Mom is MIA, Shaile is at the beach, Willa's in Asheville, Kristen is at the lake (where I was invited, but it's too late now and I'm feeling too lazy), I have done all the work I can do today, and I'll do the little bit of homework I have to do I'll do later today, so I'm going to hang with Lois for awhile. Haven't seen her much lately and she and Bill are always a lot of fun. Of course, even getting my act together enough to go even that far seems like a bit of an ordeal, but I'm going to work at it.

Grandma is watching TV. Her second favorite pastime (first is eating). She'd love it if I would just stay here and plop down and watch TV all afternoon. But I can't do that. It's just too pretty and I have too few obligations today, so I need to take advantage of the opportunity.

She fell today. Just a little while ago. It's verrrry odd to me, the last. . .four? five? times she's fallen have been, coincidentally, on days when I've been at home. Understand, I am hardly ever home. I mean it, hardly ever. I'm normally here early in the mornings and late at night; it's very rare for me to be here for more a few consecutive hours at a stretch (not counting overnight). This means that mGma (my Grandma, pronounced MIG-ma) has, statistically speaking, a greater chance of falling when someone is NOT at home; however, she somehow manages to only fall on the rare occasions when I am here. I wonder what gives? Is it merely coincidence? Or is she subconsciously doing it on purpose, for attention?

Dunno.

Anyway, oh well, if I'm going to Lois's I guess I need to get up and go. It's almost 3:00 now.

Oh, yeah, the biggest thing there is to write about is that yesterday mGma signed the lease! At ROBINWOOD! Yesssss! Oh, stop saying that, I am NOT mean! I will, believe it or not, miss her being here. But I will also be happy to have my house to myself. To not have to hear the damned TV blaring all the time. (After she's gone, I'm not even going to have a downstairs TV, I don't think). To not feel as though I'm constantly having my space invaded and that my room is the only sanctuary I have in the entire house. I'm looking forward to all of that.

Of course, I'll also worry about her, being there in her apartment all alone at night. But I think (I'm hoping) that having all those people around her during the day will make her happy enough and that I won't have to worry about her in the long run because she'll be having too much fun to be lonely.

We'll see.

Off to Lois's. . .