Sometimes I Feel Like a Piece of Bologna

Learning to Juggle

My week has gone amazingly well, making me believe that perhaps I haven’t lost my touch after all. I used to be quite good at juggling big projects. Back in the days when I owned a consulting company I handled multiple multi-million dollar projects at a time and loved it. Then I started home schooling and gave up that life. For the next 18 years, I just juggled multiple academic subjects and a few miscellaneous projects. In recent years, I feel as if I’ve gotten sloppy, although I’ve remained busy. But last week tested my abilities.

Monday all of the players met at the rental property – insurance adjuster, dry out contractor, rebuild contractor, flooring contractor, and tenant. I was amazed at how fast it went. Everyone arrived at the same time and we were done within an hour. We went over to select the flooring and were out of town in less than two hours. Amazing. I had expected it to take the entire afternoon.

We drove on to Mom’s and brought in dinner. The next day we had two doctor’s appointments, and one the following day. Bottom line--more tests. I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll ever get an accurate diagnosis. I feel like I’m getting a medical degree in addition to my theology degree! She’ll do some more diagnostics and we’ll reconvene in a month.

Meanwhile, we noticed a problem with her water. It comes out brown! Yuk! So we talked to a bunch of people, brought in a plumber, and found that her galvanized pipes are beginning to corrode. So, do we invest several thousand dollars to re-pipe the house? It’s unlikely that we’ll recoup the expense if we need to sell in the next few years, but we can’t leave it as is. She’s already developed a GI problem, possibly from the water… So once again, more things I don’t know how to do.

I’m learning to rely on my intuition and make decisions, knowing that some will be right and some will be wrong. Hopefully the important ones will be the right ones!

To top off our sandwich, we visited our son and DIL in southern CA to celebrate her birthday. We’ve had a wonderful time visiting with them and several of their friends. Now, home to make plumbing decisions, finalize the rental and the remodel, and get ready for school to start.

I keep thinking it’s going to slow down and get easier. Silly me. However, I do believe that this is great prevention for Alzheimer's! I feel as if I’m giving my brain a real workout.

Labels: aging parents, decision-making, sandwich generation