Friday With Lillian and Saturday at Home!

I spent nearly every Friday in Fort Worth with Mother for years and years.

Now I still spend nearly every Friday in Fort Worth - with Lillian.

Lillian was so good to Mother - even when Mother was unkind to Lillian.

I love this photo so much!

I took Lillian out for the day.

You can see she's excited. My favorite thing about this picture is that she has her purse!

I don't think she's been outside the nursing home for over a month.

She seldom goes anywhere. There's no one to take her.

She still has one daughter living (her oldest daughter and her only son have already gone to heaven) and three grand daughters. I have only seen one granddaughter ever visit and that was when she was there to take Lillian to see her daughter, Ann, one last time while she was in the hospital.

Also, note the new flooring and the fresh painted walls!

They are going to be painting the rooms and putting the same flooring in them.

Now that is a real spirit booster!!

We went to IHOP for lunch.

That was one of Mother's favorite places.

It warmed my heart when Lillian ordered the fish and she ate all of it!

I helped her finish off the 'potato hash' which was really good but didn't look like hash to me!

I love her so.....

After lunch she wanted to go to a thrift store and so we did.

It didn't take but a few minutes until she found a place to sit.

Lillian has had three back surgeries and walking is painful.

I was so sorry she didn't find a treasure at the thrift store!

She did find one top in a beautiful color - but it had a stain on it and she didn't think we would be able to get it out.

I found a couple of treasures.

This reminded me of what Amber told me once......

"Mom, you dress up just like a little doily!"

I ran into Tuesday Morning to pick up some coffee and tea. Lillian stayed in the car with the AC on.

Our next stop was to see Deanie and Charlie.

It dawned on me the other day that I have not seen a single one of my siblings since January 29....the day of Mother's funeral. We talk nearly daily on a message thread but we have not laid eyes on each other.

Meet Winston!

He is Trish and Andie's sweet doggie and Dean and Charlie's GRAND dog!

They babysit him while Trish is at work and Andie at school.

I think he likes me!

We had the nicest visit!

Deanie and Charlie have both retired now and we sat in their new sitting room - where her office used to be. It is beautiful. Mother moved in with them two weeks after they moved into this house.....what was it? Four years ago? They finally have the time and energy to decorate and add their personality to the rooms. As I went through the kitchen to the bathroom down the hall.....I noticed a note tacked to the pantry door. It said 'This is NOT the refrigerator!'

I laughed and asked if that note was still up after all this time - thinking it had been put there for Mother. They both said, "NO!!! That note is for US!"

At least it's both of then and not just one!

There were lots of hugs all around!

I think Lillian truly had a good time visiting.

We looked at the whole house admiring every room.

We drove back to the nursing home where I changed sheets on both beds and added that mattress pad to Lillian's. Margaret has a hospital bed so pads won't work for her.

I made a Walmart run to pick up groceries for them.

They eat sandwiches and cold cereal plus cottage cheese and fruit to supplement their meals.

Sometimes the food is not fit to eat and then other times it's pretty good.

Friday night their trays had BBQ chicken, rice and steamed broccoli.

Margaret ate hers but Lillian just wanted cottage cheese so I ate her dinner before I took off for Walmart. That's what wore me out - I tried three buggies and none of them pushed right. Finally I found a fourth one that seemed to work better than the others but I was half way through my shopping when I realized how much work it was to push that cart!! My knee started hurting and my ankles, feet and everything else. I'd been there over an hour when Lillian called me to see if I was okay. I had just got to the check out line! While my cart was in line - I went over and found me a decent buggy to take the groceries out to the car. I returned to the line and waited another 20 or more minutes for the one person ahead of me to pay. Her card didn't work and she kept pushing the wrong numbers. Management came over to help - twice. Finally, the lady with her used her credit card to pay and then they s l o w l y moved on out of line. By the time I got the stuff to my car and sorted through to what was ours and what I got got Lillian and Margaret - I was exhausted!!

Drove back to the home and realized I had some heavy stuff to get in. Two 12 can packs of A&W Cream Soda and a big container of Perrier water - plus milk and all the other stuff.

Next week I'm taking an old luggage thing I used to use when I was a team mom for Amber's Synchronized Swim Team. I finally got it all in there and put up and then  had to sit for awhile to rest up before I could go home. They both fussed over me a like couple of mother hens......which made me feel good. Margaret gave me one of her Cokes and we had a nice little time together before I left.

They insisted I call when I got home - even though it was after 10:00!

What Lillian and I learned from this outing was that she can't walk much and she can't shop.

She was really looking forward to shopping.

She told me stories of how she worked downtown at All Saints Hospital in Fort Worth and got off at 2:00 in the afternoon. She would go straight to Dillards or Macy's and shop.

I'm thinking I might can take her to Target where they have the electric shopping carts she can ride in.

Also she loved visiting Deanie and Charlie. And she liked riding around and looking at things.

For our June outing - I am taking her somewhere at least once a month - we are going to Mineral Wells. They have the Crazy Water store there. Lillian doesn't drink much at all. Hardly any water. She doesn't like tea! Imagine that! She only drinks one cup of coffee. And usually one Cream Soda a day. Plus a little milk with her medicine. But she said she likes mineral water. I can work with that.

I drove home, called Lillian, and then sat in the den with Louis Dean and a glass of wine and we told each other all about our day. We ended up talking for over 2 hours!

Saturday morning started off late and with a cup of Texas Pecan coffee, a Moon Pie and a scripture.

Here's the coffee and teas I got at Tuesday Morning.

They have such good prices.

It's been a good Saturday.

I decorated the den all up in red, white and blue!

I decided to just do one room!

I have so many memory treasures.......

this painting Amber did when she was little.

It won a ribbon at the Texas State Fair. The ribbon is still taped to the back.

A few Texas accents......

I realize nearly every photo is so busy looking.

That's the way it is around here.

Once the den was done - I redid the little table in the kitchen.

This is one of my favorite pictures of my son, Jesse, and his family.

It's an old one - the kids are all big now.

Louis Dean has been digging ditches and moving mountains.

Yesterday while I was gone - he fell into the fence behind where the gazebo deck is.

He took a chair with him. While he did not get hurt, it scared him - and it scared me.

That's part of what we talked about last night.

What happened was - he got too tired and wanted to push on to where he had planned a stopping point. The lesson learned is - don't keep working once you are truly tired.

That's when accidents happen.

So today - he stopped at 3:30. Came in and took a nice long hot bath and rested.

We both accomplished what we set out to do today!

And that's a good feeling!!