Saturday evening at the beach

Mother's Day Outing

Happy Mother's Day to all.

I spent yesterday with my sons. We visited and went out to eat for Mother's Day. Today was the the day to take my mother out for some fun, so my sister and I took my mom and my aunt to the casino. My state is well known now for the casinos that we have on two separate Indian Reservations. Gambling is bringing in a great deal of state revenue.

I don't enjoy the gambling too much, and I believe have only been to the casinos a couple of times. I allow myself to play the slot machine for a small amount of money and I usually lose it all within 10 or 15 minutes. Then I become bored. The stores there are very high end so I don't shop there. Today, I walked around for exercise and brought my camera along.

The elders really enjoy going and know their way around there like the back of their hands. They usually take bus trips down there, so they were very excited when we told them that we would like to take them today. Since my dad is in rehab, my mom was free to leave town for a few hours.

We all took a break after going our separate way and met up for lunch. We ended up going to Panera Bread because the elders wanted soup, but I was disappointed, I mean I can go to Panera Bread anytime at home. I was hoping to go to Hard Rock Cafe. But it was Mother's Day so it was mom's choice.

I brought books and magazines along with me so I would not become too bored, but I never read any. The day actually went by pretty fast, after I lost my money in the slot machine, with just walking and people watching. I thought it would be more crowded being Mother's Day and all, but it wasn't too bad. They are saying that with the economy the casinos are not as busy, but since I never go there I had nothing to compare it to.

It is kind of funny to watch everyone play those machines thinking they will hit it big. Our elders think they have the machines figured out and they believe some machines are better than others. Maybe, but for me, I might as well have thrown my money out of the window, because in the end that is just what it was like.

Distracted

I am so scattered, seems like it is so much harder to focus than it was just a couple of years ago. Is there something happening to me or is this typical for this stage in my life? I don't know where to start when I get up and I feel overwhelmed. So I start something then stop and go start something else. Before you know it, I find my self on the computer. I mean I could have e-mail, Facebook updates, or updated blog postings. It is hard to stick with one project and see it through without jumping all over the place.

With that said, I will drag myself away from this machine and get back to work.

Elder news

It has been a long week. My dad was moved to a nursing home for rehabilitation. He has been doing well there and they don't expect him to be there too much longer. I will take a ride up to see him there today. I know he is anxious to return home. I learned my lesson about discharge last time though. I am going to make sure a couple of days in advance to get the instructions to be sure everything is in place when we get him home.

When my dad was in the emergency room, he waited 3 hours until they gave him an EKG. When my sister questioned the delay, the doctor got mad at her and used the excuse that they were short staffed. She wrote a letter to the president of the hospital to complain and ask about how they plan to take care of the staffing problem. I am very curious to see what his response will be. We fear that because my dad is elderly that they don't have the sense of urgency they might have with a younger patient.

But in any case, we are sure glad he was at the ER before all of the swine flu panic hit. I saw on the news last night that the ER was breaking records for patients seen this week. It must have been a complete nightmare to have to deal with the influx of people when they are so short staffed.

In a couple of weeks I will going to a workshop called, How to Avoid Caregiver Burnout. I am bringing my mother, mother in law and my sisters! I understand that this is supposed to be an excellent presentation and I look forward to it.

How topics of interest change as we go through our lives.