Well this is it. The term really went by fast. I hope to keep in touch and see how everyone is doing. I had a great time with the girls last week and am right back into running around like a nut. Mom has had a lot of dr. appointments and adding more therapy to help her. I am glad but it means more schedling and running. She is going on vacatoin with my brother soon so I will have a little break, it will be good but of course I will worry about her because I am not there to oversee things. He does not pay as close attention as I do especially because he has 2 kids. This is also just my control issues. Well I wish everyone well and good luck in your future classes.

Well the guilt still creeps in but it is not as bad. When I am at home with mom I feel bad that I am not here for a longer time, but I know I have to live my life. Things are going so well with my man and I feel like I have a second chance at happiness since I screwed it up so badly the first time. This weekend I am going to visit friends and am looking foward to it. A nice girly weekend. It will be a good break from my normal routine. I made sure I finished all my projects early so I have minimal work to do on the weekend.

new outlook

Well somewhere along the way I started to feel less guilty about wanting and having my own life. I make sure mom has what she needs and spend some time talking with her before I lock myself in my room to do home work. When I am spending more and more time at my boyfriends house I am not feeling as guily not being home with mom. I realize I was not going to live there forever anyway. It was supposed to be temporary. She does need me to be close thought. Then I think back to my grandmother after my grandfather died. She was alone a lot. My parents tried to go visit every weekend and if she needed anything they would get it for her, but their whole lives did not revolve around her. Just because I don't have a family with kids doesn't mean my life is any less important. I feel like a light bulb went off. I was so consumed with taking care of mom and now I am enjoying my new life that I am building. Of course next week I could be all anxious and overwhelmed again but that is life.

It's never good when you wake up and already feel tired just thinking about what you have to do in the day and through the weekend. I am a people pleaser and try to sqeeze everything in to make everyone happy. My mother has been in the house a lot because of all this snow so she needs to get out and do some shopping. So I am trying to fit it in between work, her Dr. appointment and not to mention this crazy final project for my nutrition class. It is so time consuming and hard to wrap my head around. Plus I am already tired from work, my boss was away for a week and a half and I was in charge and taking care of things and opening and closing. I don't mind but it was exhausting. I am also trying to make time to hang out with my boyfriend and his kids. I am trying to developl a relationship with them, he only sees them everyother weekend so I need to make time in there somewhere. Sorry I am venting I just get overwhelmed sometimes. Everytime I think I am even going to have a minute something else comes up, usually mom needs something. Like this morning I wanted to sleep in a little since we didn't have an appointment till 10:00 and mom was at my bedroom door asking when I was gettting up because she needed help with something so I got up and helped her. I did go back an lay down but the sleep was broken and her need could have waiting another half hour. Oh well that is life you have to go with the flow. I am usually positve but I get overwhelmed and anxious sometimes. And then I feel guilty about that.

I was snowed in most of last week with my mom. I was trying to do the resposible thing and not leave her alone too long, and wanted to be closer to work in case I could make it in. Then she still didn't want me to be away to long on the weekend. I guess because she is alone a lot she obesses about things. I ended up having a nice valentines weekend with my boyfriend. We need our time too. We went to a winter gala on Saturday night. It was fun to dress up and dance and let loose. Last weeek was a nice break with all the snow days, ecxept for the fact that I don't make any money, when you are a hairdresser you do not get paid when you are not there. You can't stess about it because you can't control it. Well I better get to work.

Welll we are at the end of the Epic blizzard. The media just eats this stuff up. At my boyfriends house we did not get as much as my mother about 40 minutes north of here. At some point today we need to go shovel out the driveway. I think she got about 25 inches, yikes! I felt a little guilty getting snowed in here but I made sure she had plenty of food. I started a big pot of chili Friday before I left for work. I also checked in with her often. I am always torn trying to have my own life and feeling responsible for my mother and her happiness. I feel like I have a second chance at life and happiness after my divorce but feel such a responisbilty , probably because she is so fragile and not as independent as I am. She wants me to have my own life and is happy I found someone but I know she is lonley. Everyone tells me not to feel guilty and that I am doing a good thing by even living there and making sure she has what she needs. It will always be a struggle I can only do the best I can in between school , work and building a new life for myself. We signed her up for a senior center so she can have more social interaction hopefully the weather will improve so she can actually get out and do stuff. Well I will be very sore tomorrow from all the shoveling we will be doing. It is good exercise anyway.

I have been sick all week and am finally starting to feel better. I still worked but did shorter days. I pretty much just did my clients that were in the book and then left. This is the second year I ended up with a fever, before that I hadn't had a fever since I was a kid. I take it as my body tellling me to slow down. I actually rested and slept and nothing fell apart. I always worry about getting behind in my school work so every free minute I am doing something. This week I did not and I am not behind. Hopefully I remember this lesson once I am in full gear again. There has been talk with my brother about mom maybe living up by them. I have mixed feelings about that. It would be a break , but I also wouldn't want her to be eight hours away. Then they said maybe half and half , that is not a bad idea. Well there is a lot of talk and planning so we shall see. I am looking foward to next weekend I am going to visit my best friend who I have not seen in a while, we still have eachothers chrismas presents. Well I better go finish my project for my nutrition class or I will be behind.

Well this week has just been the usual chanllenges. We did have some added responsibilites. Mom has been trying to sell a classic car that was my dad's. It is hard to have strangers come th the house when she is alone but we finally have a buyer. Of course since the car has been sitting for so long there are battery issues. My boyfriend was very helpful but with these types of cars it is never easy. My mother gets paranoid about little things and harps on things so that makes things a little more challenging to deal with. Well we finally got the car started and hopefully it will be out of our hair soon. We had an open house at work last night and it went very well. I work in a salon and it is always good to gain more clients. I hope this isn't too boring, I have to run now and get to work.

introduction

My name is Terri , sorry it took me so long to post something here. I wasn't really sure how to get started. I am basically starting a whole new life. My father passed away two and a half years ago and things have been kind of crazy every since. I went into protection mode of my mother who needed and still needs a lot of support. In the process of deciding to move to another state to help my mother I also decided it was time to divorce my husband of 9 years. I made this decision with the full support of my family. If it was up to them I never would have married him but that story it for another blog. So in moving to a new state only knowing my mother I have started a new life and met a lot of wonderful people in the past year and a half. I also started school in May 2009 to finally make the career change I have been thinking about for years. My mother has a form of dementia which can come from depression so we are dealing with those issues as well. It is a lot to juggle sometimes and can be very overwhelming. I am lucky to have met a wonderful man who is very supportive. Even though it is a good thing he takes up a lot of time in between my other things. I thank God that I have him in my life some good in the middle of all the craziness.