Spending Time With Mom

I'm really not sure what to say at this point.  After a little over a year of good progress, my mom is really struggling now.

A few weeks ago she was in the hospital for a few days due to a fever.  I saw her in the hospital and she was pretty tired.

Then almost two weeks later she was in again.  But this time, there was harder news.

And then mom and dad made the decision to transition into hospice.

And so, this weekend, apart from visiting on Wednesday and Friday, I threw myself into chores at home.

Jennifer and I got boxes of Christmas decorations from storage, and spent Saturday and early Sunday morning decorating.  We also had pad see ew for Thanksgiving, because we were neither of us interested in turkey this year.  I got my fix of semi-traditional Thanksgiving food by having country ham when I was at my parents'.  And then yesterday, I told Jennifer I was going to do more chores.

So, after taking the empty boxes back to storage, while Jennifer cleaned up plastic pine needles and did general cleaning, I took care of lots of "manly-man" tasks around the house that I had been putting off.

New wheels on our wheelie cart.  Check.

Assemble and hang giant map on stairway.  Check.

Hang fancy shelves and mirror in bedroom.  Check.

And then I assisted in the last stages of clean-up.

And the house looks great:

This year we bought a set of advent ornaments for the tree in our foyer.  That's what's in the basket and why the tree seems so bare.