Thank you all for your well-wishes. It looks like several of us are either going through this awful stretch, have gone through it, or will be going through it soon. Right now (unfortunately) my mother is still in the “everything is under control, I know what I am doing” stage. Along with this goes the parent-child relationship. How could my sister or I know what might possibly be best for her? We are her children, and she is the parent.

We are in Amarillo, Texas for the night. This is a very flat-land, tumble weed-full type of drive. There are several patches on this journey where you do not get cell phone reception. It’s strange that this no-cell-phone thing really bothers me. It’s so easy to forget that about ten/fifteen years ago, EVERYWHERE was a no-cell-phone area for us. Funny how spoiled we get. New technology just becomes  everyday fare so quickly.

This past week has been rather hectic. My mother has not been doing as well as we had hoped, so my husband and I are driving up to Colorado to see her. (Luckily, my son is able to stay here at our house, so we at least don’t have to worry about finding someone to take care of our home while we are away.) I have been on the phone a lot during the last week, coordinating between the hospital, my mother’s long term care insurance company, her at-home care service, my sister, my brother, and, it feels like anyone else who happens by.

I have to tell you that it is extremely difficult to coordinate my mother’s health care situations from this far away. Both my sister (who lives in Oak Park, Illinois) and I have tried to talk our mother into moving to either of our cities. Unfortunately, she does not want to leave her friends.

Anyway, I will be “On the Road Again”. It takes us two days to drive up there, so it’s a good thing my husband and I enjoy listening to the same types of audio books. We tend to listen to books a lot during conversation lulls. John Mortimer is on our agenda for the trip, and perhaps we will listen to E. F. Benson’s non-mystery Queen Lucia, again! (We both enjoy E. F. Benson’s Lucia books.)

We have already bought the time on our computer “plug-in-stick” so I will have access to the internet. Those little stick-things are great to have when visiting people without WiFi. And, apparently I have complained a lot about the tiny, little keypad we usually travel with, as my husband has already packed a normal size keypad for me. That should make it a lot easier for me.

Unfortunately, we aren’t pulling a double-your-fun type of trip, like we did the last time we went up to Colorado – when we were able to head up to Yellowstone Park.  This is one of those “just-the-facts-ma’am” types of trips. A time to get all sorts of health related business done so that things are easier for my mother.

I went up to Austin on Saturday morning to visit my daughter. We had a really good time just taking it easy. We took a walk along the Lady Bird Lake, which I have always thought of as a river. (It flows through the city, but I’m guessing that since a man-made dam is involved, it’s not a river.) My husband refers to it as Town Lake, which was its name before being renamed.

After our walk, we went out to dinner, watched television, and yakked the night away. The weather was unbelievably beautiful on Saturday.  Both my daughter and I wore short sleeve shirts. It felt downright balmy at times. Fast forward less than twelve hours.

Yow! The weather on Sunday was the norm for a January day in this part of Texas. I was very glad I had bothered to check the weather forecast before I headed up on Saturday. Around here, if you’re going out of town, you had better pack for two separate “seasons.” IT was definitely long sleeves and jacket weather on Sunday. (All of you in the northern part of the country would probably consider our Sunday “cold front” weather as “unbelievably beautiful” for your areas. I know this is a case of relativity.)

I remember back to when our children were still in school. >>> Every morning, while my husband was showering, I would tune in to the Weather Channel, and get the day’s forecast. I was always ready with the shorts VS long pants, short sleeve VS long sleeves, jacket VS no jacket, forecast they would need for the day. It was never “coat” weather.

I actually remember buying them heavy jackets when we first moved here. People kept telling us that every five (or so) years there would be snow. I was determined we would be ready for it! Those snow jackets were a big waste of money. In all the years we have lived here, only one time was there something on the ground that resembled snow – although it was so thinly distributed on the lawn that it was almost not worth waking everyone up to see it. Almost…