Busy, busy ...

... with taking care of my parents and painting my bedroom.

My parents are both sick at the moment. My dad has bronchitis and my mom the flew. So I had to do their groceries and picking up medicines at the pharmacy. They are doing much better now.

They decided not so long ago that it was time to go to a service apartment because of their age (80) and their starting health problems. The house they are living in (where I was born) is too big and they have to take the stairs to get to their bedrooms (they sleep apart because otherwise they keep eachother awake). They also have a huge garden and my dad isn't able anymore to keep it nice.

So about 1,5 week ago they reacted on an add from the home rental company for an apartment near the home for the elderly. These apartments are exclusively for older people. There's an alert botton in the apartment in case they need instant help. Last Tuesday they got a call that the apartment could be theirs if they liked it. When my mother felt a little bit better I went over with her to see if she liked it. She didn't and to tell you the truth so did I. It was a bit too dark for me and for her. When we were home again she told me that if she had to live there she would be dead in no time! We then talked about installing a chair-lift and renting help for the house and garden so that they can stay and live in their own house.

On Monday my walking friend/neighbour Suzanne called me to offer her help. I told her some time ago that I have several rooms in my house that need to be painted (walls and woodwork) but because of the fibro and a hurting shoulder (I had a frozen shoulder in 2004) I just can't paint the walls or ceilings anymore. Unexpectedly her husband decided to take a week of absence from his work and so he could take care of their 2 girls and she had time to help me.

I'm so happy now with my new bedroom. I haven't slept in it yet, because of the smell of the paint (waterbased but yet very stinky). I sleep on the cushions of our couch in the living room. They are very comfortable to sleep on because they are as thick as a mattrass.

I haven't done much scrapbooking. Only during a crop at Birgit's on Wednesday.

I did buy some very nice books at Bol.com about srapbooking and collage and book artists. The titles and authors of these books are: Scraptastic by Ashley Calder and Al.pha.bet.i.ca by Lynne Perrella. For the Dutch readers: you have to go to the English booksection at bol.com first and then to search. They have a lot of nice English books about scrapbooking and bookart!!

I also decided last week that I want to have a gardenhouse. I talked about it with my parents and they want to help me financially to make this dream come true. After having a home program for my son since he was 9 (so that means for 5 years now) with all kind of different people working for me with my son in our house, I feel I need to have more privacy in my house. Our study is also my scraproom and when my son comes home from school he has to be in the study/scraproom and so I don't have a place to do my scrapbooking.

We will make the gardenhouse very comfortable and warm. The walls, roof and floor will be isolated and there will be electricity in the gardenhouse so that we can put an electric heater in it during the cold months.

I already ordered a gardenhouse. It's 3,80 x 3,80 meters. I now have to ask some strong men to help me clear my garden. Sometimes I really hate to have fibro because it makes me so dependent on others. In the past I would have done everything myself and I considered myself as a very independent woman. I suppose I still am an independent woman but just not on everything anymore.