My New Kentucky Home

This past few days have been busy ones. So productive but so tiring. But I am now living in the place I’ve wanted to be for several years.

I first applied for a room here three years ago and the wait began! The Carmel Home is the most sought after Retirement Home in the area. It takes you from still able to care for yourself to the final day of your life. Run by the Carmelite Sisters, it is the home of retired priests, sisters of other communities, and now me!

I first got the word that my room was available during a visit with my aunt. It’s a small room but perfect for me at this stage of my life. My kids rallied around, helping me pack one day, loading their trucks the next day with most of the things I had out to bring. I say most because there are two vital boxes of things that haven’t arrived yet. Finding them is now my priority since they hold all of the extras to my sewing machine in one and all of the chargers and charge cords for everything in the other.

My daughter came in today to help me put away all that arrived yesterday and I can now get around without fear of tripping over it all. I was amazed at how long it took us to bring some type of order to everything. Okay, the order was to sort through all of the quilt tops and decide where to put them. I found a place for almost all of them, only having to send two home with my daughter for storage. The amazing part is how many quilt tops I have pieced in six months! All that remains now is quilting them, a daunting task now that the sewing machine needles, pressure feet, scissors, and threads are missing. I will manage though. I always have and hopefully always will.

Update From Home!

Well, I’ve been home for a week and a half now and I’m still in one piece!  I’m doing a lot of walking around the apartment and in the hall and hardly notice the leg was injured at all.   I think I’m fortunate that the MS seems to have taken care of the brain cell that let’s the pain thru.  Now if it would only do the same for my left shoulder, sore from using that walker!  I’ve considered self amputation but no one seems to want to help me with that.  I’m pretty sure it would require more than the one hand available to perform surgery on myself, not to mention the mess it would make!  Don’t worry, I still have half a brain cell working and that keeps me close to same on most days.

I’ve been keeping kinda busy sewing face masks.  My first plan was to donate them to the local hospital, nursing homes and emergency workers but then I discovered they aren’t accepting home made ones.  Now I’ll just take them down to the office to distribute to anyone who wants them.  Of course I’ll keep a couple myself, especially the UK ones.  And the ones that match my outfits.  A lady is almost always coordinated, you know!  Not that I would know that much about being a lady!  More like a diamond in the rough that will require several decades more to learn to sparkle.  Hey, I need something to do now that I’ve given up trying to bounce!

I went over to Kroger a few days ago, mostly to just get outside for a little while, but also to see if they had any alcohol in stock — the rubbing kind, not the drinking kind.  Although one of the nurses at Hillcrest mentioned something about 190 proof scotch would sanitize things also.  Frankly I didn’t know they made 190 proof anything, but I think I’ll just take her word on that.  Especially since Kroger had some in stock when I got there — with limited amounts, of course, but I got my limit so am still spraying myself and everything that comes into my apartment down with it.

I’m so lucky in many ways.  I decided to take the curtains down from the bathroom shelves and straighten them up as I looked at the supplies I have on hand.  I found so many partially used bottles of liquid soap, bath gel, lotions, and other items  that have been listed as “out of stock” or limited to one bottle, so I’m trying to combine them into fewer bottles and adding water to the empty ones.  That gives me some liquid soap for routine hand washing.  I can remember my mom doing that most of her life.  She grew up during the Great Depression and just never forgot what it was like to have to do without so many things that we all take for granted now.  I guess I absorbed a lot more from her than I ever thought.

I suppose I should shut down now and try to sleep again.  That was all I did for almost a week but now I think I’m all caught up, but I have to do laundry tomorrow and don’t want to fall asleep in public places ever again  Ya’ll take care of yourselves and check in on a neighbor once in a while to see if they are doing okay.    Most of all, please stay safe and well!