Sharp Dressed Dyke

I was chatting with my coworker earlier this week about his radon mitigation system (which is not happy sucking up moist basement air in the winter), radon detectors, and the fact that our public library probably has detectors in their library of things. They do, and I'd never really thought to check our house, so I checked one out since our kid lives in the basement and we live above the basement. We're a couple of days in, and apparently it's averaging close to 4. Yikes: "the EPA also recommends that Americans consider fixing their home for radon levels between 2 pCi/L and 4 pCi/L"! Yay, potential lung cancer?

We had a bit of a warmup today, so I used a bit of my day to shovel ice off the driveway, as a getahead before the snow coming back in tonight. Managed to tweak my lower back again (after it had calmed down from last weekend's shoveling and snowblowing at aunt's and Mom's), dangit. But then I tried the ice scraper! Holy crap, that thing is awesome, and I'm kicking myself for both not buying one when we first moved in, and then for not actually using it for at least one winter after that. I was poking at crap with the shovel for 30 minutes, then the scraper finished the heaviest 15% of the driveway in about 5 minutes, including the shovel-clearing of the shards.

In happier news, I used part of my day off work to call my first choice* assisted living facility to see if they had any patio units facing the woods/field open up since I last visited 3 months ago, and they had one, plus another that would be ready in Feb, so I popped over to check them out, decided I really liked the currently-available one for her, and put down a deposit. Mom's going to hate me briefly for taking her out of her house, but the apartment is of a similar vintage and style to her house, it has a little patio she can sit on, and it faces the edge of some woods where they meet a field. Now comes the logistics of moving her in, which I'm endeavoring to do within a month. And tomorrow I need to check on the status of her long term care claim eligibility assessment, since we submitted everything a month and a half ago and I haven't heard back yet. Last time we got a quick rejection, so I'm hopeful this time will be a positive outcome, as it would offset a good chunk of her monthly costs there, and consequently ensure she can be cared for longer. Ironically, the Alzheimers helped her lose weight, which has made her healthier, and me limiting her sugar intake with my grocery choices has helped a bunch more, so I need to plan for potential years of care with increasing assistance needs.

* My first choice was Mom's second choice, but I get an odd vibe from her first choice and have talked to different folks there every time, versus the same folks every time over years at my choice. My actual first choice she didn't really like, so we ruled that one out early. I've learned to trust my gut on this kind of stuff. My choice is also nearly equidistant from me and my aunt (about 4 miles, would be only 2 for me but for a river in the way), while the other is more like 7 miles from me and 1.5 from my aunt. Mom's house is 15-16 miles from mine, and 11-12 from aunt's.

Of course. Too good to last. I've had Mom's phone whitelist set up for a whole month, and then they change it. The whitelist could only have 48 numbers on it, which wasn't exactly a lot. Now they've helpfully reduced it to only 32. And I got a notification of the change today, which has already beenbeen done today, and got directed to a FAQ telling me if I didn't trim the list before the change that the existing list would be wiped out and I'd have to start over. Awesome. So she's definitely been getting more spam calls today that are ringing through. And remember, this was only ever a list of phone numbers; you can't even label them. Good thing I built a spreadsheet the week after I initially set it up.

Oh, and the option to have it email your voicemails with a transcription is also wildly unreliable - I won't get any emails for days, but there's a steady stream of hangup voicemails when I call in from her phone to clear them out.

Did I mention I worked another 50 hour week this week, basically half between yesterday and today? I DO NOT have time, patience, or mental bandwidth for this bullshit.

EDIT: haha, I'm a dunce. The email says this is happening a month from now. 🤦🏻‍♀️ 32 allowed entries is still pathetically small, particularly if you want to allow things like doctors and utilities to be able to ring through.