my mother, my cat and me

It’s been a crazy year!

Last June, I changed jobs and started working from home on a regular basis. It was great because I can be available to my mother at all times. She was not interested in joining clubs or going out. She has very little short-term memory at this point and becomes anxious when alone. So, working from home was perfect!

Until it wasn’t …. In December, I realized that I was spending about 18 hours a day in my bedroom – my office was there, my bed was there, and my post-mom’s-bedtime TV watching was there. I also realized that my mother’s lack of privacy, while not a problem for her, was becoming a problem for me. It was excluding me from using most of the apartment space. So, I started thinking about moving. I thought about it for months and just when I decided to act, the COVID-19 restrictions kicked in. So, I waited a bit longer and in July started looking and tracking properties. In August, I decided to get serious. In September, I sold my condo and bought a 2-bedroom unit in the same building.

The new place needed work. Some of the renovations were done before we moved in, some are in progress now and some will come down the line. It’s been a challenge to move and it seems to be taking a long time to settle in. The good news is that I think that by the end of December, we will be in good shape. We’ll still have the “down the line” renovations to do, but we will be in good shape.

I am not a patient person, so it is stressful that it is taking this long to settle in. Part of the problem has been that I needed to order some furniture that takes a while to get here, so we have boxes of books and bookcases with dishes and glasses, and other stuff hanging about. But the bigger problem is that I was just exhausted. Really, just flat out tired and stressed. I just need to breathe deeply and be patient – we will get there in the end.

As to the blog, here is the plan – with the goal of one or two posts a week:

• A few more posts on The Crown and perhaps some other TV shows – this has been about all I can manage these days,
• Some posts on books that I read a while ago – hopefully, this will make me want to pick up books and read again,
• A few posts about how my mom has been doing with all of this chaos (answer, pretty well!),
• A few posts about renovations and how they are going and how everything looks – these will likely be in late December or in January,
• And a few random posts about other stuff.