As you can probably tell from the silence around here, I haven’t felt very “bloggy” lately. I’ve sat down several times over the past couple of weeks to write a new post, but I end up staring at the blinking cursor for a few minutes and moving on. Nothing’s wrong. Just feeling quiet, I guess.
Our trip was beyond wonderful - a much-needed time away for both of us. We spent each night right on the coast, with the surf pounding outside our windows. Heavenly! And yes, we did visit the Roloff farm, or more specifically, their pumpkin patch. We saw Matt's parents, dressed up as sheriff and cowgirl and even more exciting, the Roloff's dog Rocky, who was tearing across the field to the house. (I didn't even know he could run! On the show he just wanders around looking old.) No sightings of any of the main family, but it was fun just the same.
My mother-in-law’s valve replacement last month went really well. The surgeon had to replace more of her aorta than he’d originally thought, which took longer than we expected, of course. We had our section of the waiting room filled to overflowing as friends and family came to wait for news with us. O’s cousin B (who is very close to my MIL) was her nurse from the moment she came to the CICU, which was a huge comfort. I guess it was very hard to get her stabilized for her first couple of hours in the CICU, which we thankfully didn’t know at the time, but after that she did really well. She was in the cardiac unit for three days, and was then moved to a step-down room for almost a week. She’s been in rehab at a nearby nursing home for a little over a week, where she’s working on regaining her strength. I expect she’ll be there most of November.
In the meantime, her kids decided this was the perfect time to redo her sewing room, hallway, and one of her bathrooms. Hardwoods have gone down, paint has gone up on the walls, and knobs, hinges, and lights have been replaced in the bathroom. It’s been hard to keep it a surprise. One of her friends drove past the house on the way to see my MIL and commented on all the workers at the house. Sigh . . . As I’ve said before, you can’t change underwear in that small town without everyone knowing about it.
Anyway, we spent lots of time at the hospital, and now try to visit rehab every day or two. I’m also doing her laundry and trying to keep my FIL stocked with dinners so he won’t revert to his favorites: Vienna sausages. Bleck! His birthday was this past weekend and we got my MIL from rehab we all went to dinner at a nearby restaurant. It was a lot of fun, but also showed me just how far my MIL still has to go before she’ll be even close to back to normal.
I haven’t talked to/heard from Nikki since we traded those snotty e-mails back in late September. I purposefully took a break to get through our trip and the surgery without having to think much about it. C, our wonderful state contact, spoke with the worker assigned to our case at the state office last week. She did receive some paperwork, but it wasn’t what she needed. C contacted Nikki who said they’d “get on it” but the they were short two abuse/neglect investigators so our SW Mia was having to do some of that work too. (Of course, if Mia had done her job in March, April, May, June, July, August, September, or October, that wouldn’t be an issue.) In short, C said she really didn’t have any idea of when they’d get the paperwork to the state.
So, I have contacted the county where we did our foster/adopt classes requesting a transfer. Even if we have to do our home study over from the very beginning, we are happy to if it means that we can break ties with our worthless county. Of course there is the possibility that they may not have the personnel to take us. And then there’s the fact that our county has to give APPROVAL for another county to handle our case. I’d imagine their funding is based on the number of cases they have, so they may not be too eager to let us go. Should that happen, I will be contacting every member of the state’s D*C*F*S board, the D*C*F*S Commissioner, my senators, my representatives, and the newspapers until I find someone who can help us.
I am through being screwed with.
