Monday, June 16, 2008

Mom and Dad's new home



I didn't pay the lawyer $1500 to assure Mom's Medicaid application and finances were done right. I paid them $3700 for both Mom and Dad's Medicaid application. Don't ask where I got the money, as I am still sweating that payment out. Now I find out that I have to pay upfront for Mom for the month of June to go into a nursing home. I thought the nursing home would get reimbursed, but I was misinformed. I was very thankful that Mom and Dad's bank, Chase, loaned me that money. So now I have around $400 a month more in bills and with diesel increasing like almost daily, I will be going under if I don't get reimbursed by Medicaid in July like the lawyer promises me. Mom was admitted on June 10th. The cost until the end of June is $4435. That is almost $222 a day just for Mom! She had a room mate for 2 days. Then the joint room for them became available. Mom and Dad moved into their room on the 12th. On June 7th, three of my friends with Luke, along with Mom and I moved Mom and Dad's furnishings into a storage room. That was eventful, as my brother's cohort (I guess my brother was too chicken to call) called the sheriff and stated I was stealing all of Mom and Dad's stuff. Imagine the surprise of the deputy when Mom and I greeted him! Later that day another deputy came out as I called to tell him my brother kept driving by. Oh yeah, on June 2nd, I had the 4 abandoned dogs my brother left there hauled off by animal control officers. The female officer says she knows my brother, as she has had past dealings with him and his dogs. On June 9th, Mom and I filed eviction papers against my brother to vacate Mom and Dad's house. The hearing is set for the 25th, two days from now. I already have a buyer for the house, so hopefully I can get my brother out and clean up his mess and sell the house to pay off the new loans and existing bills in July.








Luke turned 27 on May 20th. Seems like only yesterday he was in diapers! In all of this mess of family problems, I have met a new friend named, Christina. Mom loves her and even Luke gave her the thumb's up. Dad didn't like her much the first time she met him in the nursing home. Christina was wearing a University of Texas t shirt and Dad told her she could come back, but the shirt couldn't. The next visit, Christina was wearing a Texas A&M t shirt. Christina has really been a big help in teaching me about taking care of elders, as she took care of her Aunt for three years.



I guess the best news of the month is that I adopted a ferret. Rebecca's friend, Ashely had him for two months after her grandmother became allergic to him. He is a four year old like my two ferrets, Sneaky and Phoebe. Check out the photo of the 3 of them here. His name was Critter, but I changed it to Buttons, as he has a cute button mark on his nose. Luke calls him Mister B. I immediately fell for him when I saw his cute nose.



But Sneaky has been giving Buttons a harsh welcome. Buttons was raised around elders, so he is constantly at our feet and dancing around them. Buttons didn't know how to play rough as a ferret and Sneaky showed him real quick. Buttons is really a lap ferret, as he will lay in your lap and go to sleep. Luke let it be known the other day that when he moves out, Buttons is going with him! Buttons gets along well with Phoebe and has even been playing rough with her, but Sneaky really puts the hurt on him and poor Buttons just doesn't understand why as he scampers away, squealing.




I did get some time on the Big Red Beast. My neighbor gave me $50 for diesel fuel when she helped me move Mom and Dad. They wanted a hole dug as deep as I could get it and about 20 x30 feet. I asked.........just dig a hole? She said yes. So over two afternoons, I dug the hole and filled it with trash and junk. I had the hole down to about 11 feet deep. At that depth, the clay was really packed in hard, but the Mahindra's 511 backhoe took it in stride. The only thing I forgot to do was take photos of the hole. It took me about 5 hours to dig. Now I know about how long it will take me to dig my pond(s?) when I am ready. The only other time I used the Mahindra recently, was when I changed mower blades on my Hustler Fastrac. I lifted the front end off the ground to reach the blades. But the blades I bought a couple of weeks ago are 3/8 of an inch too long and hit each other. So now I get to return them and do it all over again later in the week. My 6520 is now at 250 hours which means I get to buy some neat Mahindra filters and crawl around under her.



I made it back to work last week after being off 4 & 1/2 weeks. It was a huge relief to be back working on airplanes and sweating, as I haven't been able to work out much with Mom staying here and the pounds were starting to increase! I was able to borrow two weeks of vacation from 2009, so that really helped. I will say good bye now as I am getting sleepy. Stop back in later to hear about the eviction hearing and more about Booger!
hugs, Brandi

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