Black Friday and Grandma

Well, it has been a while, hasn't it. I have sort of been busy. You would think that I have been busy knitting, and I should be. More like, I'm getting ready to knit, but I'm not really doing that much actual knitting at the moment, though I am still working on the scarf for Miss Allergies. I am getting ready to knit something for the pilot, but I not quite certain about it, and I haven't gotten started on it yet because I'm afraid that I will make a mistake and have to start all over again. And I really cannot make a mistake and start over, cause I don't have enough supplies. I must be certain of what I am doing before I get started.

Anyway, I did finally clean that bathroom that I haven't done anything about since I hurt my knee. And then after my knee felt better, I put off the cleaning for another week or two, as after I have put off a chore for a while the chore gets worse and worse, and it is almost like I become afraid of it. Anyway, now I also have to tackle cleaning the frig, which is also difficult to do with an injured knee, and I have to wash a very large pile of dishes.

I have no excuse for the large pile of dishes. My ability to wash dishes doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not my knee hurts. But after I don't do them for a few days, they reach a certain mass, and then it is just really difficult to deal with. So I will have to do that soon, whether I feel up to it or not.

I have had a lot to eat. Not like you might think. In spite of spending all that money on groceries so that we wouldn't be tempted to go out, we still managed to go out to eat twice, and have ice cream twice in addition to that. But mostly we have stayed in, except that I went out once with my mom (mostly without problems), and he has been cooking a bit, and we went to Thanksgiving dinner at Uncles G's place.

At Thanksgiving dinner I expected to have all sorts of things to eat that I would really like, but most of it wasn't quite what I wanted. Now, there were plenty of pies. We joked that there were enough pies for each person to eat a whole pie, and I did eat pie and I did take home half of a pie. But the other stuff wasn't quite what I expected, except for the turkey and the ham. But this year mom only made pies, so the rest of the stuff just wasn't as good as mom's.

I had been worried about what to bring, and that my stuff wouldn't be as good as everyone else's. After seeing all the Google searches for Rudy's creamed corn that lead people here by mistake, I decided to try that one myself. I found a recipe for two pounds of frozen corn, a tablespoon of sugar, eight ounces of cream cheese, a quarter cup of cream, and half a stick of butter. So I made that, except that I didn't find two pounds of frozen corn and used three twelve ounces packages instead. And when I got the idea, that seemed like plenty, but it wasn't. But it turned out to be enough as one of the families had something come up and didn't make it to Uncle G's place.

I have a turkey. I like turkey, so I buy one when it is on sale, even though we rarely make it for other people. So the turkey is thawed now, and I should cook it today or tomorrow.

So after Thanksgiving comes...Black Friday.

Now, I tend to go shopping on Black Friday, but as I am usually more organized than this, I usually shop mainly for myself on that day. Except that I usually also get a few more things, like I usually go get a few more things at Bath and Body Works. I didn't go there this year, cause I just didn't have the money, which is sad because they had the most excellent deal "while supplies last" and if you spent forty dollars you could buy this other hundred dollar thing for fifteen. And I really kept trying to reason out how I could do that, but I really couldn't, and I decided to be on the safe side that I should avoid the area.

This year the shopping was entirely for me. I bought two pair of jeans that I can wear now, and one to grow on. Or rather, one to shrink into, just in case. And I bought a mixer and a chopper.

Before you tell me how selfish I am for shopping for myself instead of Christmas presents, well, I can't do Christmas shopping for other people or do anything else for other people if I am naked. I really did need those jeans, and I have put off buying them till now, cause I was hoping that they would be about half price at Walmart like last year. And they were. And I got a free t-shirt with each one. I think having the bundle with the free t-shirt cut down on the confusion on which jeans were the sale price. Last year I finally figured out that the ones on sale had the bar code in a different place. This year you just had to find the ones with the t-shirt attached. This year's jeans were nine dollars, while last years were eight dollars, but I still think that it worked out better. I haven't tried on the t-shirts yet, so I'm guessing that they won't look good, but I'm pretty happy about the jeans. As happy as I'm going to be the way I look now.

And the mixer, well, I don't think that I have one, and I need one, especially if I might be expected to exchange baked goods with someone, or bake something for a party. So now I have a mixer for such an occasion.

Okay, for Christmas with my friends I need something for G (not Uncle G, and not S, different G), I have already wrapped something for J, I need to make final touches on stuff for R and K, and I am working on stuff for Miss Allergies and the pilot.

Christmas with my family still has not been discussed, though I can now cross my fingers and hope for a baked goods exchange or some really cheap gift exchange. That was half of what we did last year, and I actually thought that part was more fun. Less stress and all of that.

But now there is Christmas with my extended family, which I did not expect, and that is going to be in about two weeks. I am thinking about knitting a scarf for that, if I have the time. I haven't made scarfs for any of them, so they might actually want one. And it is one of those things where you "steal" gifts from other people, so hopefully someone who actually wants the gift actually ends up with it. I'm just not sure if I'll have enough time, but I'll try using the other knitting machine now that I have seen the YouTube video on how to fix dropped stitches.

So that should be fun.

My husband is going out of town for a week, so that should leave me plenty of time to knit. I just have to make myself do it, and all the other stuff that I will have to do that week. The next week he is going out of town for a few days, and he wants me to go with him. And, the way the schedule is now, he isn't supposed to work that weekend, so I could go with him and not miss anything that I have planned. However, if the schedule changes while we are out of town, I'm screwed. So I will have to give it some more thought. And of course, it will depend on how much knitting I get done, and how much cleaning I get done, etc....

And then, there is Grandma.

Now, those of you who have really been paying attention know that my mother has been trying to get me to help her take care of Grandma for the last four or five years. This has lead to serious problems between us, almost to the point where I have thought that the next time she mentions this I will totally cut mom out of my life. My mother claims that I haven't made myself clear on the subject, that I have said that I would rather not, that I haven't ever said absolutely not and do not mention this again.

So now I have said that, and that should be the end of it, right?

Anyway, Grandma had to go to the hospital for something, and when she got out they put her in a nursing home. Not the nice assisted living place that she used to be in, but a nursing home. So I thought that was the end of that.

But everyone seems to think that she is better now, except that the doctors do not think that she is well enough to live by herself, and if she is going home she will need someone with her 24/7.

Grandma wants to go home and does not think that she needs anyone 24/7. Her plan is that we take her home, and that she has someone there for the first few days, and then we just lie to the doctors and do whatever we want to do, not what they say.

So my mom calls, and she says right up front that she knows I don't want to do it, she's just mentioning it cause one of my uncles said I should have first refusal. So I think that she isn't really asking me to do this again, just that she's telling me what they are going to do, and that they are going to hire someone to help Grandma, just that the someone isn't going to be me.

And then as she goes on and on about it, I realize that she still is asking me, she just doesn't think that it counts because she's asking on behalf of one of the uncles instead of herself.

The odd thing is that I am actually considering it, if I can get a straight answer from someone, maybe one of my uncles.

Anyway, I would help on those first few days for free, cause I figure that we are all going to help out a bit for those first few days. And depending on how that goes, I would think about it. I do need the money, and at this point they are willing to pay me as much as they would have to pay an agency, which is a minimum of fifteen an hour for a minimum four hours.

I just can't quite understand what I would be doing for those four hours, would it be more than four hours, what time would those four hours be, etc...?

Sometimes my mother talks like I would just be running errands. But I don't really think that is it, because I have offered to run errands before (even for free) and I rarely get called to do that. And we would still have to talk about the important stuff, like what if I have an accident while I have this "job", and what if I get sick, and what if I just need a day off, etc.... When you get a real job, someone knows the answers to this stuff. My mother just seems to think I'm making stuff up.

So I am thinking that I will help out for a few days and see what happens.

I still don't have a flu shot. Grandma won't like that. Maybe mom will pay to get me one. Maybe this will get us all on the list for the h1n1 shot. That would be good.

I still don't think that I want to do it, but I'm thinking that if I did it for a few days and it didn't work out that would finally be the end off it.

Anyway, I have knitting to do.