I finally got my desktop computer back, it seems to be working good so far, had a glitch when I first got it where the technical dudes at HP did not finish setting it up before they sent it back, so I had to call HP and spend nearly an hour on the phone sorting that all out and getting it finished.  Now I have been reinstalling programs onto the computer so I can get back to work.

Dad has a blood test tomorrow, check his coumadin levels, but I am uncertain if we’ll make it.  My cell phone’s battery was not charged, and that is the only place I have phone numbers stored, so I was unable to alert the person giving us a ride to it.  ::wince:: Phone is charging and I am calling her as soon as it has enough of a charge on it.

Otherwise, I’m just stressing out.  Trying to keep stuff together and pretty much getting by day to day by telling myself you’re asleep in your bedroom or down in the lower 48 every time I start to loose it.  Bad way to get through the days, but a neccessary evil.  I’ve been watching Prison Break – a TV show – on DVD, sort of a addictive watching of the show.  I’m watching 3 or 4 DVDs, each with 4 eppisodes on it, every night, then rewatching them if I can’t get the next set of DVDs from the rental store.  I need to just go buy the series, maybe for Christmas.  It is a sanity saver for me, the plot being intricate and complex and the characters ones I really really like, so when I can’t sleep at night because trying to leads toward breaking, I sit up and watch Prison Break or something like that on TV until I am too tired to be able to stay awake any longer.  That way I can sleep without having to think before I fall asleep.

I’m in a growly mood at the moment, so I figure it would be a good idea to vent things here rather than keep growling at the dogs.  Just snarled really bad at poor Cheyenne, confused her since I never growl at her.  Poor girl.

What’s got me in a pissy mood is that I asked to get your counter top grill back from the folks you loaned it to and got some story about “nope, don’t have it.  Got one, but it’s been ours for years.”  That’s a load of crap and you and I both know it, but without you here I know that they are going to stick to that story about it not being your grill and keep it.  Pisses me off, to know it belongs to you and be unable to get it back from them.  They said they will look around and see if there is one there, but I know that they’re going to claim not to find yours and keep yours as being theirs.

Hell, even if I do get it back I know that it will probably be destroyed from using metal utensils on the non-stick surface of it.  So… yeah, I’m just in an all around bad mood at the moment and feeling helpless and wishing like hell you could tell them to give you damn grill back.

It has been some time since I have written anything here, but I have been busy. I sent my computer off to HP to get it fixed, which seems to be taking forever to get done but I know that it is right on schedule. Or at least I hope it is.

I have been trying very hard to come up with the money that I need to get the heater fixed, I gave up on fixing the car’s brakes until next spring, I’m not going to worry about it since the heater is the more important thing right now. Without it working there’s no hot water. Heat and hot water are a bit more important at the moment to me and dad than being able to drive the car.

Every effort I have made so far has resulted in a dead end, so I am going to try one last option. Remember those guys I had told you about a while back that I was going to see if they could help me get the bill for having my tooth infections taken care of paid? I’m going to contact them, see if maybe there is any chance they can help me with getting the heater repaired and some fuel in the tank before it gets too cold to keep the house warm with the little electric heater I have been running. Ideally I want to get the heater repaired and be able to buy the stove pipe and fire bricks and stuff I need to get the wood stove working again. I’m most uneasy about the thought of having the electricity go out for several days. Me and dad could head for a hotel or something, but the dogs and house plants and water pipes would all freeze.

So, now that I have exhausted all the other options I have been working on, and made every effort possible to call in on any money or favors that anyone might have owed you, I am taking one last ditch effort at getting the heater fixed – if this don’t work I don’t know what in the heck I am going to do.

I can feel it.  Etching away at my emotional shields, chipping at the edges and threatening to break loose.  I’ve had to stop several times today and just lean against the counter or wall, forcing everything to even out and willing myself to not loose control.

Someone in my writing class had warned me that they had been in the role of the strong one, that they had tried to hold fast against the storm and ended up crying uncontrollably in the corner of their office seven months later — I’m starting to see this as a good possibility for what is going to happen to me.  I’m determined to hold fast, though, to not break against the ragged edges I can see.  As long as I need to be able to respond to any call from dad within a moment’s notice, I can’t let things break.  The more I think about tomorrow and the next day and next week… the harder it gets.  The more I see things that make me think about you, things you would love to see – like my little miniature rose bush
leafing out once again, or the small figurine I am currently working on – the harder it is for me to hold things together.

I had a chance to go pick cranberries earlier this evening, but decided not to.  I wanted to, I really did, but I was uneasy about getting out alone in the woods out behind the house and loosing control of the tight hold I have on my emotions.

Last night, as I laid down on the sofa to get some sleep, I was hit by the thought of just how difficult it is going to be to try and save you and dad’s home.  All the times you and I had discussed me getting the house as a way of you and dad paying me for all of the years I had set my life aside… I could not see any way I could possibly save the house and even now, as I write this, I keep stopping because I start to cry.  I don’t want to loose your house.

I can’t see any way I can keep it though.  I have no work history, no credit history, nothing that would cause any bank or other lender to trust me on a mortgage refinance on the house.  I’m going to lose it and all I can do is sit here looking around thinking about what the future holds for me.  I look at the things you loved so much, at the things you and dad collected over the years and all I can see are the things I will be able to take with me and the things I have to part with.  I lay here with the heater on the artificial fireplace I bought for dad running and think about how I will have to one day leave that behind as I take what I am able to and find somewhere else I can live… somewhere outside of Alaska.  I think I’ll probably head for Quartsite, AZ, camp out on BLM lands in the trailer with the dogs.  If I can get my computer online there I will still be able to earn enough money for gas and food each month, so I think that would be my best option.

Yes, I can see you cringing.  Don’t worrry, I would not camp out by the bridge where my uncle had been.  I still recall the horror stories you and dad had about that.

Right now all I can do is hang on and take care of dad.  I’ll worry about all of the other stuff when the time comes – or when I try to go to sleep tonight.

I’m nor going to be writing very much today since my jaw hurts really bad. Last night I started getting a toothache and when I woke up this morning it had began to infect. I’m trying to battle the infection back using a peroxide / water mix, but I think it’s winning. Right now the only way I’m functioning is by holding a cold compress to my jaw until the pain stops enough I can pass out for a bit.

I’m hoping that the infection goes away on its own, because I already owe the clinic in town money I casn’t pay for the last visit I had to make there when my tooth infected this spring. Need to find a dentist that will take payments instead of demand everything up front for fixing my teeth.

Adding to the cruddy day I had yesterday and today, my desktop computer malfunctioned. I mean it seriously seriously malfunctioned. Now sitting in there as a paperweight on the desk, I’m hoping I can sort the trouble out and get it fixed, but not looking hopeful.

Well, I found the things I had to have for my taxes and got them filled out and ready to mail. Just in time. Now I just have to sort out getting to the post office to get them into the mail.

As I had figured, 90% of the “how can we help?”’s faded away back into the woodwork soon after the memorial. It is ridiculous, people are fawning all over themselves to help in the days following something like that, then when you have your wits back about you and can think about how someone might be of help they’re gone *poof* back into the void they had come from.

I’m not about to go into specifics on any of it, not even the ones that are still here helping. You don’t need me to anyway, you and anyone else who really has any business knowing specifics already know the details and this is such an open medium that I am not going to go into any kind of specifications.

Oh how I owe those who have continued to help me and dad, I’m still sort of teetering on the edge of sanity at the moment and trying to pull together everything like my taxes, bills that have to be paid, funeral expenses (you knew I was going to need to pick that one up), trying to get the heater fixed before winter sets in :::wince:::, and all the other chaotic stuff going on — oh, and figuring out how to keep dad’s blood test appointments when I am not an experienced enough driver to safely drive him to them in a car with bad brakes. Like the heater repair fund, the fix car brakes fund went straight out the window in the aftermath of ….

I can’t write anymore at the moment.

I miss you so much mom. I love you!

Sandra
~~~~~

I was sitting here trying to think about what all I needed to get done and realized that my taxes need to be to the IRS by the start of October.  ::cringe:: The extension I had got last April is about to expire and I am so not in a mindset to be working on taxes.  Where the heck did that copy of Turbo Tax I got go?  When my computer malfunctioned on earlier this month and I had to reset it to factory standards, I lost the copy of Turbo Tax that was installed on it – now I need to find the original program so I can access the work I had already for finished on my taxes.

I soooo do not want to have to restart that all from the beginning.  Particularly not when it has to be finished within the next few days.  :::wince:::

I’m so going to fail getting those back in time.  Tonight and tomorrow will be spent working on my taxes, getting everything I can done.

I love you, Mom
Sandra

I don’t know if I am suffering a flu bug or if it is stress and lack of proper diet and lack of rest, but today my stomach has been nothing but a tight painful knot. It seems like some kind of stomach flu, so that is my assumption for what it is. I suppose it could be having made myself eat yesterday after not having ate more than a couple bites here and there since the 14th.

As I write this it is 12:12 am going into Thursday morning and I am debating on if I stay up all night again, watching over dad as he sleeps, or if I should try to get some sleep. That dang sleep apnea he has makes trying to sleep impossible. It was much easier when you and I could take turns, you staying awake to keep an eye on him, then me staying awake while you got some rest. Now I find myself trying to pull off double shifts and it is so difficult. The others were coming around and that let me sneak off to get a few hours of sleep here and there, but I know they will all go back to their own lives before very long and I’ll need to settle into some kind of balance point on when I can sleep and when I can’t.

The exhaustion does make trying to work hard. I got some stuff done this morning, but nowhere near enough, and nothing that actually resulted in my earning money. I stare at my work ledger and can see the sickening trend it has taken.

July $45
August $61.50
September $87

It was actually starting to go up in earnings, but that last entry was for earnings before the 14th… While the first half of the month was good, I have been unable to work since that day. Unable to even think about trying to work. It don’t matter I suppose. The work is not there. I have been looking, but there simply is nothing to earn money from.

I cringe to think what stress and my inability to focus is going to be doing to what little I was managing to make. And yet, I need to remind myself once again, we’re the survivors. We’re the strong ones. Aren’t we mom?

I miss you so very much.

HUGS!!!!!

Love,
Sandra