General topics.

I have to agree that distance helps.

Many years ago in the Joann May and Ladee era, a caregiver asked the question, "Why is it me, of all my 6 siblings, who has the responsibility of looking after our mother?" She specified that she didn't want anyone to answer who didn't have a batch of siblings.

I, who have only one sibling, answered any, because I knew the answer

which is:

"Because you were available."

I have seen time and again that those who don't want to care give are unavailable - for one reason or another. I have seen my sister back off of doing the simplest things for our Borderline Personality Disordered mother as she wanted to make it clear that she wasn't going to help. Mother got the message and moved closer to me.

But there was still nearly 300 miles between us, and I maintained that, and it made a positive difference to me. My plan for myself was to move to her area, but only after she was gone. I knew if I was closer I would have been hounded to do this and that. As it was, one year for my birthday present she gave me a season ticket to the symphony concerts in Edmonton, so (in her plan), I would drive 300 miles to take her to the concerts. Didn't happen!!! Mother found other people to go to the concerts with.

If you need to, become less available to your senior LO. That also means you are more available to yourself.

Have a great visit Alva!

Here's what happened to me: always had a very difficult relationship with my mother (she definitely has some undiagnosed/untreated mental health issues), so when my husband & I bought our first house 35 years ago, we moved 45 minutes away to put some distance between us. (My father had already died.) So, 20 years ago, when my mother decided to downsize from her house, she - without asking - bought a condo 10 minutes away from us.

The only good thing is I've had a lot less driving on my trips to help than I would have if she hadn't moved. However, I would love to move 1000 miles away, if I could.

Alva, enjoy your trip!! 🤩

Those books, they are in the brave battle stories section, right? Or maybe the horror section 😬

My DD lives three states away from me. I will be going there for a month soon. However, it occurs to me that were she RIGHT HERE, how much more I would depend upon her. My last breast cancer dx. I was quite anxious. Would have loved her at my side for appointments. Just yesterday it took me the usual crazy amount of time to make reservations when the site wouldn't recognize my passwords and there were cash vouchers locked away in Alaska Air's site under my name. DD is a computer wiz compared to me. Would I not say "drop by".
And thus slowly slowly we lose our abilities to act for ourselves, and we depend on those wanting to help us.
Little by little this creeps up. Soon we are being enabled not to make decisions we should be making about moving to more safety, hiring more help and so on.
I miss being able to see my beloved gal more, but we are daily in touch, and she gets to live her own life. I think we treasure our month time together all the more. And I maintain independence it's important to keep as long as possible.
It's just how I see it.
Recently I read MotherLode where Gretchen Staebler returns home to care for aging mom who then lives to over 100. Now reading LadySitting by Lorene Cary. Yup, mom is 100. My friend Di, with all her own physical problems had mom in same town to age 98.
I repeat that it seems to me that more and more we are killing off our own kids. It is really difficult to keep a needed distance. So it just kind of slowly "happens"......

Absolutely! Move 4 hours drive away was what a Councellor told me. Too far for their 'beck & call' requests, too far for day trips. It puts a physical barrier between you.

My Aunt used to help her MIL. A little help. A little shopping.

Years went on & the chores snowballed. MIL was losing independance & needed to change her life. Downsize, move to IL/AL or arrange home help. Would not.

This ate up mt Aunt's life. She sought advice & was told to say no to some of it. She experienced awful pressure.

Did MIL's actual (adult) children then step up? No.
They ganged up & increased the pressure on my Aunt (the daughter-in-law) to do everything. To keep being at 'beck & call', the shopper, driver etc. Awful pressure coming from many sides.

My Aunt left town.
She began to live her own life again.

** With her not there, her MIL was FORCED to accept other help **
This is for you Sherry!

Sherry, this is about the third time today I want to recommend to our OPs that they move 1,000 miles away from family.
If you cannot extricate yourself from participating in this rather toxic situation there really isn't any way that we, a panel of absolute strangers, could help you.

Dealing with a dysfunctional family when mom is in denial on how much help she needs and I have never had a good relationship with her, she was abusive. What do you do when she needs help but wouldn’t accept it, and I don’t have influence over her. If anyone had similar experiences please let me know how you handled it.

Jazz fest started today! Yay 😁

Venting. We miss you when you're gone. Hope you survive this storm and come back soon.

Thanks a lot for your kind words! I'll come back!

I'm so sorry your going through stuff ,venting, if you need to talk we are here to support you! Hopefully what your going through passes.

And if you do, give us more information so we can help better ,
Best of luck

It’s out of my control. I just hope this big storm that’s been thrown on me, will pass soon. I’ll come back, when it has.

Purple Heart uses a separate company called Green Drop for curbside pickup charitable donations. They have been 95% successful (despite one unsuccessful pickup). Much easier than hauling things to Goodwill.

I just need to vent. Thanks in advance, for listening.

I’m having such hard time. It’ll get better I know. But right now, it’s hard. I’ll need some luck to come my way.

I'm with you there doggie momma, I love purging, just brought 2 bags of clothes to good will this am

I am tag teaming with my mother (she is a cleaning machine even at 76) to clean out the rooms Mark's family were in and it is so gross. We had to clean up a sticky floor from his nephew throwing soda cans on the floor (thank God the roaches haven't invaded!). I spent my day picking up cigarette butts (with gloves and old clothes) that Dustin (Robert's errand boy more or less) so kindly threw all over my garage and the side of my house. Yuck. I will be so glad to move to New Mexico and have a hard and fast rule: No smoking! I do not smoke and HATE smoking. I have asthma so that stuff sticks in my chest and really hurts.

My late sister was a smoker, like at least two packs a day. My grandmother smoked. Sister died of lung cancer and grandma of pancreatic cancer. I hate how smoke smells, sticks on the walls, just everything! Luckily, my family are not smokers and hate it as much as I do. Anyway, it is nice how cleaning and getting rid of so many things makes you feel. I love the feel of being rid of so much junk.

Peace at last doggiemomma! ❤️🙂‍↕️, there is nothing better.
A lot of people talk about finding there happiness, but I think finding you peace is the most important!

I forgot how much I missed quiet and the house is so quiet now and it is so nice! My dogs are calmed down so much more. I am a quiet person in general, so it's nice to be at my house at my pace lol

DH and I downloaded a real estate app on our phones because we are looking to downsize to a ranch home in 55 and over. We use this to look at listings and then send them to our realtor when we want her to schedule a showing . It’s a popular app , I will not name it here as I can not know for sure if the following is due to them selling phone numbers or not .

However , now DH has been getting calls from some guy from some “ real estate firm” asking him if he wants to sell our house to them and stating they will pay us in cash . DH told him “ No and not to call again “
They keep calling . They just called now and DH told them “ fine , the address is 1600 Pennsylvania Ave . “ ( The White House ) . 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

I ordered a pair of shoes from New Balance and finally got fed up waiting so I checked the order status - it's listed as being cancelled on the same day I placed the order 🤔
Sister and hubbie were at an appointment downtown in the city and had to pay for parking through an app or scan a QR code, neither of which they could figure out. They went inside to ask and came back out to find a $60 ticket 😖

Don't you love modern technology?

It is a short trip, about an hour, not long at all.

How long is the trip, DoggieMom?

That works out well that you have mom to help so you won't have to purchase a separate seat for the other dog.

I forgot to mention both will be in cabin with me. My mother will keep one and I will keep the other, so they will not be in cargo. That is the good thing both are under 15 lbs.

DoggieMom here is something for United Airlines website about flying with pets. I would call whichever carrier you are using and ask them. Basically you have to purchase an additional seat, etc, etc.

Also NEVER let them put the carrier in the overhead baggage compartment. They did that to a pug on a flight once (not sure which carrier) and the dog suffocated to death.

https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/traveling-with-pets.html

Doggiemom,
Speak with the vet. Let him know how long trip is (often a moot point given airports and delays today). Check with airport if there is a doggie room; some have them where dog can get out, do his business and etc. Also important to know how long the trip is. Wish there was another way for the two of them. I think you can only keep one small with you and I don't trust when they are not with you. Alas. Talk with the vet. My own dog Abby, long past now, didn't do well on tranquilizers of any kind. Almost like they made her sleepy but her loss of control made her MORE anxious. So I recommend trying a dose before the move.

So, weird question, when I move I will be flying with my two small dogs. Should they be medicated? My youngest, Sky is a whiner.

It was beautiful and eerie at the same time. I was at work (I am a school librarian) and we had really good totality.

I saw Dallas go dark on the news doggiemom, it looked like a lot of fun. My son is in Austin, haven't heard from him yet, but I'm sure he saw it too.