May be away for a few days

Was trying to get a substantial essay ready to post this morning but I’m not going to make it. And now I am probably not going to be able to post again until next Tuesday night. I am committed to spending the next several days sitting with my husbands frail, 91 year old grandma while my in-laws take their annual trek to the coast. I don’t know what, if any, opportunity to get online I will have. I hope to use some of the time there to write and continue with the major revamp of my sidebar so that I will have plenty to post here in the days after I get back.. But my attention has to be primarily on Grandma as she is impulsive and forgets there are things she can’t do unaided anymore. I have to keep a close eye on her and try to anticipate what she needs so she doesn’t try to do it herself if it endangers her. She has had several bad falls in the past six months and I dread her having one on my watch.

I’ve also had to switch my hours back to days for this so it should be interesting switching back again Tuesday night. Grandma is an early riser and early to bed and I have to shut myself in the other bedroom after she goes to bed or else her dog, Spot, will stay with me and Grandma will keep getting out of bed to come wheedle Spot to come back with her. I am taking my laptop with me which gives me plenty to do in both work and entertainment once I am shut up in the bedroom. Last spring and summer when I spent every Saturday with her so the family could go to the races all I had was books and sewing. Which was plenty but I ached for the keyboard because the previous racing season I got to be on the family PC from 3pm on Saturday until people started getting up Sunday morning about seven or eight--if I could last that marathon which I often did. Got a lot done that year. This weekend I’m taking DVDs with me to play on the laptop. And books of course. And my sewing because Grandma is always interested in what I am working on and asks about it even when I don’t bring it with me. But I will have to be strict with myself about the temptation to stay up all night because I have to be awake with the sun to get Grandma’s breakfast and coffee or else she will try to do it herself.