I'm A Voracious Reader : AVR Weekly News ~ 503rd Edition ~ The End of an Era

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by
Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer.
~ Recap the past week ~
~ Show what's upcoming ~
~ Share news ~
~ Display book hauls ~

Sunday ~ Meme ~ AVR Weekly News ~ 502nd Edition
Monday ~ Audio Review ~ Hellbent by Gregg Hurwitz
Wednesday ~ Audio Review ~ Boon by Ed Kurtz
Thursday ~ Tour Review ~ Academy Arcanist by Shami Stovall
Friday ~ Meme ~ Friday Featured Spotlight ~ TWR Blog Tour:Truth in Blue

Monday ~ Spotlight ~ The Stranded by Sarah Daniels
Tuesday ~ Audio Review ~ Little Slaughterhouse on the Prairie by Harold Schecht
Wednesday ~ Spotlight ~ Academy Arcanist by Shami Stovall
Friday ~ Meme ~ Friday Featured Spotlight ~ TWR Blog Tour:Academy Arcanist
Sunday ~ Meme ~ AVR Weekly News ~ 504th Edition

On the Home Front:

Sunday - Our AC stopped cooling Saturday evening. No after hours emergency service on Sunday anymore, not even for maintenance plan members. Grrrrr! They'll call in the morning. I have every ceiling fan and box fan on high. The house got up to 90º. I should go to HVAC school just so I can fix this shit myself. Went to a Burlington Sock Puppets baseball game in the evening courtesy of Sheetz. They had a patio reserved with tables & umbrellas, food, and drinks.
Monday - Left for Ohio. HVAC guys called as I was heading out of town and said they would be to the house in 20 minutes. By the time I stopped at the Virginia rest stop the AC had been repaired. Then the day went downhill. I hit 3 severe thunderstorms that slowed me down. After I had crossed into Ohio my brother called and said mom wasn't doing well and they had called the squad to take her to the ER. So he said to go straight there instead of the farm. I rolled in around 5:30. I was shocked at how bad she was doing. I had talked with her on Friday and we talked about what we were going to do during my visit and the things we were going to cook. I made phone calls to family to update them then sat and talked (well, I talked she listened) with mom for awhile so bro and sis-in-law could go make calls and do things. My nephew and his wife showed up. Mom was finally moved to a room around 7:45pm. My oldest bro arrived as they were settling her in. By 8:45 she was gone. I called my eldest son to tell him and he said he'd just parked in the lot. My niece showed up right after he did. I called my husband to tell him and he broke the news to our kids. I can't tell you how much of a shock it was. The downhill slide was so fast! My daughter and her boyfriend (from Arizona who is here visiting) drove up overnight. Hubby, Trip, and Kyle stayed home. Oldest bro and I didn't sleep much.
Tuesday - Woke up early. Bro was up early. Anna and DJ rolled in. We met with the funeral home mid-morning. Anna wanted to see mom and apparently there's a new law (not in effect when dad died 5 yrs ago) that says we had to identify mom since she came from the hospital. So I wonder what fuck up made that law a reason for existing. When we got back to the farm I sent Anna and DJ to bed. We mostly puttered around until it was time to go next door for a family dinner. We had all of mom's favorite foods. Still didn't sleep very well.
Wednesday - Up early. Everyone else slept until late morning. Eldest bro was heading back to his place in southern OH. Sis-in-law and I went through mom's clothes and got them packed up. I packed up all of mom's foodstuffs from the cupboards to bring home with me.
Thursday - Packed up stuff from fridge into cooler. No room to bring freezer stuff so I'll get that next trip. Anna, DJ, and I headed home. Trip was uneventful and tiring.
Friday - Kyle and hubby home for bereavement. Hubby helped me rearrange and sort though stuff in kitchen cupboards. Still have a couple to do but got most of mom's foodstuffs integrated into mine. Anna & DJ took her car in for an oil change. Stepson worked on it. Monday night when they were driving to OH they hit a dead deer that was in the road in the mountains of WV. It was dark and foggy so they didn't see it in time. It tore up the protective shielding underneath (that bro and I had to rig up with some zip ties because it started dragging Weds) and was a mess of fur and blood. Ewwww. Anyway, Timothy sent pics via text. Gross. lol Also replaced 2 front tires and got an alignment. It was really out of whack which is probably why the front tires were worn so bad.
Saturday - Did the cleaning. Random crying popped up. How rude of Grief. Hubby worked outside tearing out stumps and cutting up trees. Worked on this post.
Today - I need to do the mowing and Trip the weedeating. After that I have a ton to do on my blog. I have to get shit done this week since hubby and I are heading to Ohio on Friday to help move things around in the buildings and sort through some stuff. We'll be back home Sunday.

Mom's week: My last mom update. She was feeling shitty because of the thrush and the chemo, but was trying to eat and drink as much as possible. Still, she became dehydrated and by Monday was running a fever of 103º. That's when bro and sis-in-law called the squad. When she got to the ER her BP was in the toilet. Her O2 was always dipping under 90 and, at times, in the 70s and she kept saying she was having trouble breathing. She was still fighting and I think she only held on long enough until my oldest bro made it there. Then she was gone. Just as she lived life. When she wanted something done, she wanted it done right now. She didn't like to wait around.

My grief overwhelms me at times. But then I think how miserable she was. Or I think, okay, she was going to stop the chemo. Then what? The tumor from the stomach cancer would have eventually shut off her esophageal sphincter and no food would get down. Would she have agreed to a feeding tube? Or just slowly starve to death? In just a day that all became moot. Like my bro said, everything was so focused on her that now she's gone there's a giant void. What do we do now? We know what to do about her will, her effects, the farm. We just don't know what to do without her.

I wonder how long before I stop picking up the phone to call her. Or I reach for my iPad to check to see if she's messaged me. Or think: I need to ask mom...

Touching Nature: Less hot. It was beautiful weather in OH though it stormed something fierce Monday evening into night. Less hot at home in NC.

Book News: 2 audios done while driving.

Don't Touch That Dial!: Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 4.

At the Flicks: Nope

Cyberspace Playground: Wordle, Word Lots, Solitaire, jigsaw puzzles

Randomness:

Carol's Nuggets of Wisdom: Cherish your loved ones today because they may not be there tomorrow. Ask your questions, get the family history, go through pictures that don't have anything written on the back (thank goodness oldest bro and mom did that), make sure wills are up-to-date, and don't hang on to stuff you'll never use.

That's it for me. AVR News Update signing off. May all your books enthrall you.