Weekly Wrap Up 10/16/20-- Visiting my Mom

I have been trying to arrange either visiting my Mom at her house or having her come to our home every quarter since my Dad passed 18 months ago.  However this pandemic has really messed things up.  Last quarter I drove to my Moms right before Firedrake went off to college and before MarioFan started school.  This time I flew out to see my Mom and got a chance to see how the airports/airplanes are managing this pandemic.  Luckily the airline I used was keeping the middle seat free and mandated that everyone over the age of two wear a mask.  There were no issues that I saw so it wasn't a bad as I feared it would be. 

I found an overpriced N95 mask at the airport and bought it in addition to wearing a face shield.  Despite the face mask company saying it doesn't fog up, it does and it was hot and very uncomfortable to wear.  I forced myself to wear on the way to my Mom's, I decided not to endure the face shield on the way home. 

While at my Mom's I try to help her with any house/yard items that she needs to get done but can't do on her own:).

My Mom and Jack our first day together we relax and just enjoyed each other's company

Her garden club has resume their meetings and are meeting outside or in someone's garage.  One of my Mom's friends from the garden club.  I always enjoy going and seeing what they are doing.   I am not a gardener like my Mother but I enjoy attending these meeting with her when in town. 

One of the ladies brought this book for her grandchildren about the pandemic and I thought it was excellent for young children.  She was passing it around at the garden club

It was my Mother's birthday so I made additional UK Christmas cakes and we had the smallest one for her birthday:). The other two are for her to have over the holidays as we are not sure what the holidays will bring and if we can be together. I make her a Christmas cakes every year when we are together or I mail her one:)

I also attended Jack's class for obedience training.  He is doing really well and my Mother's goal is to turn him into a therapy dog.  He is still a bit young only 11 months and still a bit excitable but that is the goal.  

Jack also can't be trusted with anything laying around the house as he is a chewer!  I learned that lesson when I left my glass case on the chair, luckily I was wearing my glasses!  I poor Mom has gone though at least 6 shoes since bring Jack home lol.

I tired to helped around the yard, we had to redo the brick patio as the sealant we used earlier in the summer didn't seem to work very well.  So we bought a different product and resealed the brick.  It looked a lot better this time around.  

I helped with cutting down some logs and making firewood.

and while in the wood pile saw this!  I might have screamed a little:)

We watched a movie one night and I swear Jack was watching along with us!  It was so cute, my dog Luna seems to ignore all screens. 

We took a nice walk at a beautiful park and found a dog park that was huge and Jack loved running free.  This was his first time at the park and there were very nice people there that gave Mom information on how to use the park and the best days to come.  Luckily there were only 6 dogs there on this day.  I am hoping she will return with Jack on her own.

My mother lives down a long gravel lane and recently a neighbor removed some trees and left a very large area along the gravel driveway that dips rather low and we were worried that visitors might miss judge the edge of the gravel road and drive off the lane and get stuck.  So Mom and I came up with a way to mark the area with reflectors.  I forgot to get a picture of them all line out along the edge of the driveway but it should be helpful even during the winter months.

Mom's old printer was giving her trouble and we discovered that since she didn't print regularly, that  meant the printer heads became jammed with old ink.  This is something that I didn't know could happen since I print almost daily!  It would have cost more to fix the printer so we just bought a new one and now Mom knows to print at least one page a month so that the printer heads don't jam with ink  again!  I was pretty pleased that I got it working before I left, although I had to FaceTime  my husband to help a couple of times for assistance!  Technology is not my thing

I also added a shelf to the laundry room so Mom could reach supplies easier!  The cabinets above are too high for her to reach and I didn't want her climbing on step stools.  So we moved everything down and left only the things she really uses in the cabinets!

Because there were a few colder days while I was there, we turned on the heater and found out it wasn't working:( So glad to discover this prior to the real cold weather shows up.  Since Mom had so much trouble with this heat system last year and went several very cold days with no heat we decided to replace the system altogether instead of pouring more money into it to fix it.  

I think we got quite a bit done while I was there in addition to some time to just chat and relax.  It wasn't all work!  I stayed about ten days but then it was time to return home :(. 

While at the airport I found the BERGER cookies!  I love these cookies but they are very hard to find and ridiculously expensive.    I bought some to bring home as a treat for my family!

Mom and I had a lovely visit and hope we can get together over the holidays but with the covid numbers rising it makes planning rather difficult.  Fingers crossed that things settle down and families will be able to get together over the holidays!