It’s hard enough for me to be able to think and write something that makes sense, so when my computer hard drive crashed, I just gave up!! I have had two getaways – both to the beach, plus a wedding out of town so I am giving it a go with my computer acting like it’s brand new!

My uncle, aunt, sister, Grandma (Elly) & I sat down for lunch last month with the intention of bringing to attention a change in caregiving that would support my Awesome Hubby & me in providing additional support for Grandma. My uncle (Elly’s son) had been concerned about his mom’s banking practices. As we ate dessert he lovingly and gently guided some well-directed questions to his mom and even playfully began with a premise that we needed to take away her car keys – - (she’s never had a driver’s license or driven).

The result of his efforts to redirect and try to assert that Grandma needs to have me with her when she is writing checks and paying bills came up against her stubborn will. There was no going around it much less seeing any daylight through it. Grandma is very with it when her son is around or whenever she is talking about her son. It is amazing that she is spot on whenever she talks about him. So, nothing was resolved.

I am pointing out to Grandma her mistakes when she fills her pills and when there are problems with checks. I don’t know what else to do to show her that she needs a little more help in a few areas. The only resolution was that Grandma was going to get an IPad 2 to replace her useless, dead desktop Dell computer. My uncle sent the IPad and Air Port express in just a few days so that I could set it up, upgrade our internet and be humming along real well.

Nothing quite works out like I would expect and while we were gone less than four hours, my nurse-sister had to come over and undo all the rearranging I did for Grandma. It’s so frustrating for me because I took a lot of time to explain to Grandma why cordless phones and DSL boxes can’t be next to each other. I have decided to wait until we have internet problems before I will change it back. Change doesn’t go over very well with Grandma these days. We’ve had too much change lately, with her computer dying, my son moving into the living room and her learning to use an IPad2 for email and surfing the internet. I would love to go back home with AH and not have any of these issues.

The garden needs a new round of weeding, it’s 100+ degrees outside, 80 degrees inside with AC, four weeks are left of my summer vacation and my summer paycheck is STILL wrong… I feel whiney and I don’t like it! I am taking big breaths and trying to remember the ocean time.

I am seriously in awe of all of you who do this caregiving 24-7 with lots more issues than I can understand and don’t have the breaks that I am able to take at this stage. My hope would be that I could use my favorite get away to refresh any of you who would be available when the time comes.