Damn. It’s been five years?

Hey, yeah, it’s me. WiserAngel. Older, fatter, grayer, tireder. Still snarky.

So, let’s get caught up, shall we? Moved my folks to be closer to us in 2020. Three months later, mom had a stroke. Six months later, she died of cancer, January 16, 2021. We inherited Poppy who had started showing signs of dementia. He was still able to live somewhat alone in a retirement community, but without mom, he started losing ground quickly. We moved him in with us last year, but soon had to place him in a nursing home with memory care services. Wait, I’m missing some stuff. 

Okay, after Sarah’s death, spouse turned over a new leaf. We’re working through stuff and he’s been really great. So far. He had a work injury that required extensive surgery in 2021. He retired and I went back to work as a middle school SpEd teacher at tiny town on the south plains. I just finished my third year and still moderately sane. It was a two-hour drive from Borger, which I did for a year before we decided to move. Sold the giant house in Borger and bought 15 acres with an old abandoned cotton gin.

We moved from 4500 sq ft to an 8x40 shipping container cabin. I’m loving every minute of it. I’ll get more pics up later.

Where was I? Oh yeah, last year, we built a 16x30 cabin for Poppy. We were able to keep him with us for 8 months before we moved him. His nursing home is less than a quarter mile from my school and we eat lunch together every day. He enjoys his new home and has made friends. All of the nurses adore him. This is good, but expensive. He saved for the future, which is good and bad. He covered everything for a while, we applied for Medicaid for nursing home, and we waited. Dad’s money ran out, and we took over. Our money ran out, and Medicaid hadn’t even started reviewing his case. Wirecutter asked you guys to help, and your amazing support kept us going for a couple of months. Still no response from Medicaid. January of this year through April were me hiding my desperation from everyone and taking out 11 payday loans. Last month the house of cards fell. We did get notice that dad got Medicaid going back to January. However, they were penalizing him for giving my brother $32,000 last year. I realized that I had $3900/month in loan payments and a $2700/month paycheck. In desperation, I sold mom and dad’s wedding rings and the rest of her jewelry. I was able to pay off all but two, a $424 a month and $480 a month. I’m down, but not out.

I’m going to start selling pics of my feet on FeetFinder. GingerToes. Don’t laugh, it might work. Keep our fingers (and toes) crossed. And there’s another fundraising attempt. I am mortified by asking. I know everyone has been killed by the last four years. And honestly, I don’t expect anything. I would rather raise money than ask for it.

But hey! It gave me an opportunity to drop in and say hi! We need to do this more often and I can’t wait to show you around the new place. Check back in, I plan to stay around awhile.

https://www.spotfund.com/story/a42793fc-5d83-4942-9b7e-2ec23d883274?autoplay=false