Investments

With the economy in the state it is in, and banks dropping left and right, many people are starting to look more at taking their financial future into their own hands. One of the most popular investing opportunities I have seen is investing in precious metals such as gold or silver.

Any investment can be a risky thing, and the purchase of gold or silver dollar investments are no different. If you are considering making an investment, then Monaco Rare Coin would like to invite you to consider their investment-grade coins.

Monaco Rare Coin is part of the Monex family of companies, who have assisted customers with precious metals investments for over 40 years.

Difference of opinion in care

It is often hard to convey to my siblings some of the things that I have learned over the course of the years I have been a full-time caregiver. Things such as that our dad has to walk a certain amount or he will get blood clots in his legs, that he needs to step up the steps into the house every once in a while or he will not be able to do it. I know they just want to make him comfortable and do things that make life easy for him, but I want to do things right so that he stays healthy for years to come.

Lost week

Stress will sneak up on you in the oddest ways - such as stealing a full week from your mental calendar.

In the past few days of not getting enough sleep, I dropped a full week apparently. I sent my dad off with my sister to get his blood test, not even realizing that today is the 11th, not the 18th.

Ah well, it works out anyway I suppose, because she's taking him on a nice drive around then taking him for fitting for his new glasses later. Leaving me to get work done and - If I am really lucky, maybe I can even catch some sleep before they get back. Not about to hold my breath on that one though. At least I get to get some work caught up, however.

I'm gonna scream

I am so damn sick and tired of all of the crap. I know I am not the only family caregiver out there that has this kind of problem, but it does not help knowing I'm not alone. Nor does the car parked in the driveway with the fricking stereo going "boomboomboomboomboom" just down at the edge of hearing.

I'm already at the edge of control, wanting to scream and throw things, so the "boomboomboomboomboom" is only making me more stressed out. My dad's in a mood where because he's mad at the world, he's taking it out on me. And any efforts I might try to limit how many cigarettes he is smoking (back to back) is only giving him more and more things to yell at me about.

When I ask him why he's mad at me he just goes stony silent and refuses to even look at me. None of my siblings seem to have time to help me by either taking him somewhere or sitting with him while I get out for a walk or something. When I can afford to I will pay someone to come hang out with dad while I go shopping, and even then half the time I have to beg to get to go somewhere and since I don't want to be driving in the winter I am at the mercy of being yelled at and complained to for any stop I want to make when someone takes me to town. Lord help me if I can't get through a store fast enough to keep the driver happy.

I'm burned out and going to have a complete f-ing breakdown and none of them give a damn.

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Stress is a dangerous thing

I feel sorry for anyone that tries to talk to me today. I really do. I'm trying so hard not to yell at dad, that anyone else that crosses my path is likely to get growled at. The stress from lack of sleep is just through the roof, and it irritates me when someone cheerfully yammers on about something when all I want to do is get half an hour of sleep. I would dearly love to get a full 6 to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, but the last time I was able to do that my mom had been making sure that everything was taken care of and refusing to let me be woken up unless absolutely necessary... that was a few months before I started subtly begging my siblings to help me convince her to go see a doctor because I was worried about her. If I knew then what I know now, I would have said to hell with their feelings and beat them over the heads rather than quietly tried to get them to help.

Gifts for her

It can be difficult to find the perfect gift, particularly for a woman. Traditional flowers and perfume is nice, but it is not for everyone. These days you can get great gift ideas for any budget, even ideas for electronics that might not be as expensive to give you you would have thought.

Imagine how much more surprised the lady in your life would be if you surprised her with a laptop computer for her birthday. SaveBuckets, a UK based comparison shopping site, has Sony VAIO VGP-FL13 laptops listed for £48.27 - £54.00 as of the time I am writing this post.

Or how about showing her that you know she still loves to have some fun with a
nintendo ds or a nintendo wii game console? I want a Nintendo Wii so badly, but know I will not be able to afford to get myself one, so speaking as a woman, I can tell you, the Nintendo Wii would make a great birthday gift. (You might want to let her buy the Wii Fit setup herself though ;-D, just to be safe.)

So think a little outside of the perfume box the next time you go looking for the perfect gift for a woman and remind yourself that men are not the only computer nerds and gamers out there - women actually make up a fairly sizable segment of those groups.

Caregiver released from prison

I was reading over the paper this past Saturday and found an article about the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center, Alaska's women's prison. The article focused on the release of Wyatt, a 2-year-old Labrador mutt that had spent most of his life in the prison.

Trained by one of the inmates, Wyatt was a rescue dog from the Mat-Su animal shelter. After learning tasks such as how to turn on a light switch with his nose and retrieval of cell phones and keys, Wyatt was released from prison and into the care of his new owner. A soldier who was wounded in Iraq after a suicide car bomber rammed the humvee that the soldier was riding in.

In addition to his life and training at the women's prison, Wyatt made trips to the men's prison at Point MacKenzie (to get him used to men) and sometimes guards would take Wyatt home with them or on shopping runs to help him become adjusted to the kinds of things he could expect in his future as a caregiver.

Sometimes you just have to sit and cry

One of the problems a family caregiver faces is lack of sleep due to an unexplainably angry care recipient. I know why he gets angry, it has to be so frustrating for him to not be able to do the things he used to do all the time, like read a novel or know how to use a computer, but... he takes it out on me and won't even admit why. Not sure if he knows why. Any little thing I don't do fast enough suddenly becomes a reason to scream at me something along the lines of "you snotty little brat!" - stuff dad *NEVER* would have said before his stroke.

All I can do right now is hide out just out of sight and wait for him to yell about the next irritant (usually me). Wednesday my sister will be taking him in to get a blood test. If I can just hang on until then I'll be able to sleep for at least a couple of hours straight before she brings him back home. I'm likely to snap the head off anyone that tries pinching me for not wearing green on Paddy's day, but I'll be able to destress Wednesday.

Flowers for Weddings

Okay, I don't know about you, but after having to do research for that last article on elder abuse in nursing homes, I need to think about something a bit more cheerful. Something like fragrant bouquets of wedding flowers and flowing draperies of cascading baby's breath and miniature roses.

FiftyFlowers is a wholesale flower seller shipping their flowers directly from fresh flower farms in locations such as California, Ecuadore, and Colombia to do-it-yourself brides and wedding planners. While their specialty is wedding flowers, they are equally able to meet the needs of restaurants, hotels, family reunions... any event or occasion that would benefit from flower arrangements.

Eldercare Abuse in Nursing Homes

By now you should all know that I detest nursing homes. It is not the idea of a nursing home that I dislike so much, I actually adore the idea of seniors having the option to live somewhere where everyone is in their age range and where they have someone looking out for them 24-7-365. Unfortunately in my experience that is not the case in the nursing homes I have had personal interaction with.

It downright sickens me when I read something such as a recent article from Parade Magazine about Protecting the Elderly From Abuse in which the lead example of abuse was a 90-year-old grandmother who, in 2006, was raped by a worker at the nursing home where she lived. As scary as that was, it paled in the shadow of the next sentence: "Similar incidents over the years..."

Say WHAT?!

Now, if that is not enough for you to reconsider trusting your loved one to a nursing home, read a little further into the article and you find that in seven states, 7,000 applicants for eldercare positions had violent criminal records or a substantiated history of abuse. I have no idea just how many applications there were in those states (or even which seven states they looked at), but I can tell you that it scares me to think that 7,000 of those who applied for eldercare positions were the kind who would abuse or injure the very people we entrust to their care.

And there are no laws in place that would force screening for eldercare applicants. They screen those who want to work with children, so why not screen those who are applying for an eldercare position?