Wednesday ...worn out dealing with Brother and Daddy.

kind of....
Yesterday I woke up to my brother , who is 10 yrs older than me blowing my phone up with texts (he was at work,he has retired 3 times already and is back to work) because Daddy had to be moved from the nursing home he is in because he roams. Brother darling told me he had to find a place that took non violent Alzheimer with medicaid...

Okay, research mode with friends that work or did work in the nursing homes... A place for Mom web site their phone calls back to me... I found some in the area. Now it was Brother who had to call them and find and opening...

MEANTIME

Hubby and I go to the nursing home... BROTHER either has dementia himself (wouldn't be surprised as his wife and daughter crack jokes all the time about it) and he freaked out, not the first time as he did more than once when Mother was dying, and had a melt down. BUT they were glad we were there and caught us up to what was really going on. Daddy is roaming and going in other peoples rooms, taking crocs(he thought they were mine), and tried to crawl in a lady's bed as she was crying because he wanted to hold her why she cried BUT STILL... A couple other residents threatened him and they are being moved to a violent Alzheimer's ward. But Daddy needed a different set up that would allow him to roam (at night) and keep him and everyone else safe. They also took him off most of his meds except his insulin and he is doing better.

First Hospice had found a place for him and Brother was told the day before they had found him a place 7 different times and he was being moved RIGHT THEN. Glad we went because we got to help move him, he felt better with us being with him until he settled in the new place which had a dog and was going to have singing .... waved me off and told me to go take a nap... most he has spoke in weeks.  He now has a room mate and shares a bathroom... Daddy has been a widower for 30 yrs , not sure if him sharing is going to work but the other guy plays guitar and Daddy loves music so it might be very good .. PRAYERS FOR BOTH OF THEM

Second he is NOT on Medicaid... and since my brother pays the bills he should know that???? SO now I have his wife taking him to the doctor for dementia check up.

The Hospice lady told me she called Brother at work...told him it was fine, Daddy was moving to the new nursing home, I was there... he actually took a breathe and then  asked her if Hubby was there, since she didn't know Hubby she told him a man by this name is dealing with Daddy (he didn't want anyone to push his wheelchair but Hubby). She said there was a silence... and then a sigh of relief and said Ok, sis has this.  She thought it was weird for him to ask about Hubby... first my own health is worse than my older brother's and second , no matter how bad Daddy is , he won't buck Hubby. She was like... okay that make sense.

The new nursing home gave us a couple tips... if we get dentures make sure they are engraved with our name (daddy's is) so if we are in the nursing home and lose them they will come back to us where a lot of them without names end up being tossed... they can't just stick them in your mouth to see if they are yours.

ALSO if we buy a wheelchair to make sure we can remove the feet rests in case we are a scooter like Daddy (he uses his feet not hands to move the chair) as they can't take off the feet rest like the old nursing home did.  You can take your own cane, walker and wheelchair to the nursing home. I have a cane and a walker so I just need to start checking for used wheelchairs that feet can be removed.

So since we were in town and my coupons were expiring that day, we went to the store that was close by instead of driving 40 min to the store we usually go to. I saved 25% with sales and coupons. Got everything that was on the list with a couple substitutions as I wasn't up to another stop. AND we ate AT HOME. There are no leftovers of any kind in the frig as Hubby found out today when he was home for lunch and had to eat summer sausage instead of leftovers. 

I think I will start going to the store when we go see parents and then to Aldi's when we have doc appts . That would make no extra trips unless for milk and Hubby can stop at Save A Lot for milk when he get fuel.

Since I am now worn out to the point I don't even want to change out of the long sleeve tee shirt and sweat pants I slept in I decided pot stickers and egg rolls for dinner with fruit and pickles. I am not sure if a nap isn't on the schedule.

I did call in and order propane.... we are having a fill every 7 weeks instead of the 6 weeks we did that year. So we have "saved" 21 days of fuel. So what we have done so far to help with the energy audit has helped already.

I sat down and researched social security. Might be to worn to physically work so will do mental work.

The first thing several of told me to do was ask for the estimate of what our medicare would cost and deduct that from what our lower benefit would be since we are looking at not waiting until full retirement age. and it would come out when we turned 65. Same price of what we are paying now pretty much and I matched it to be the same coverage.

Second... look at earned income test that will change the amt of benefit when below the full retirement age.... We are okay there  EXCEPT there is one clause of 45 hrs worked PER MONTH... even though Hubby is doing a paying hobby ( no he is not making too much to lower his benefit) we have never tracked his hours... Which is not a problem to do.

We do know rules and amounts change all the time. A paying hobby might be considered as self employed or might not be... no one could really answer this at social security without an appt so we are figuring it as the worse and is considered self employed to see where that set us.

Most don't realize that social security can be taxable when added to your other income. We did because Daddy paid taxes on his and so does Hubby's parents.

I figured out and our financial guy did also.... we would have enough SS to cover the medical now and when we turned 65 and the mortgage. Which is what we had always planned it to pay. Meaning Hubby's hobby which is paying his truck and that ins would be the same and the only money pulled from IRA would be utilities/ house and my car ins and things like that which cuts what we pull by half.  So Hubby it going to think about it. My SS is based on his as I couldn't come anywhere near to what he was earning while I worked odd jobs as a Widow and raised the kids. That makes our IRA last twice as long if not longer.

At least that is a concern off our shoulders.

I scheduled our appt with our tax preparer. She feels after this year I should be able to handle doing the form myself (I used to work for H&R Block). I am just a little iffy about the hobby work... self employed no problem , been self employed most of my life...hobby never done before.When you are making money and getting 1099s from it hobby or no, you claim it and deal with the taxes.

I am tracking what we are spending money on each day to see if there are holes we can plug

Blessed Be