All weekend I've been puzzling over the inherent contradiction in these two statements: “Your mother will not improve in a skilled-nursing facility” and “We'll recommend her for five-day-a-week physical therapy at home.” After an excellent conversation with my Geriatric Care Manager, Jim Ferry, my suspicions were confirmed: the facility doesn't have the staff to chase down rehab hospitals for discharge so instead, they decided it would be easiest for them to push her on to me.

So, I just called and spoke with the vacation-fill-in case manager (because, apparently, people don't work today. Huh?), and firmly stated my disbelief in those contradictory statements, or pretty much anything they told me on Friday, and that I want her sent to a skilled-nursing facility close to my house where one of the women from my church works.

Keep you posted. I cannot properly care for my mother 24-hours a day while also tending/finding marketing/pr/writing/script development clients and, oh yeah, mothering my 5- and 2-year-old sons. I'm sure as hell not going to take the facility's idea of an easy way out!

Thanks for anyone who might have prayed between the time of my post of 20 minutes ago and now.

As it stands right now, my mom is coming home from the rehab hospital tomorrow and will require 24-hour supervision. This, of course, has me freaking out. We will have visiting nurses coming in for PT/OT/Home health (showering assistance), but that will be about 5 hours/week. We will get some homecare nurses in but at $20/hour, we can't afford anywhere near full-time help (it'll probably be 4 hours/day in the mornings, maybe 4-5 days/week).

IF you are interested in improving your Karma and IF you would be willing to, I don't know, make us a dinner or go shopping for us or take one or both of the boys out for an outing or PRAY FOR US or even sit with my mom/kids for an hour so I can go outside for a run that will help to shrink my expanding stress level and ass size, please contact me via comments, via email, or via phone.

A debilitated mom, a five year old, and a two year old. Sweet Jesus, please help me. xoxoxo

I am itching to get out to the path but even though the snow is melting you just wouldn't believe the icepack it's left behind. Clear and glossy and slick as hell. I've done 90 minutes of Wii Fit Free Step the past couple of days but that only converts to three miles and I want to be moving more than that. Any suggestions?

I spent most of it in the car, speaking of Michelangelo, but once I disembarked things were swell. Monstro and I gave books and cards to the boys and then showered each other with sparkling wine, chocolates, sushi, and a song. (No, not literally. Well, except for the song part.) Incidentally, he loved the song and its message, which is terribly filthy and NSFW. I think you should only get to write songs like that if you're over 35 and have been in a committed monogamous relationship for at least seven years. But enough about the Bill of Rights.

Monstro bought me a beautiful necklace and pendant and it fits just so in the hollow of my throat. He's out tonight so I'm going to go eat a chocolate I bought for him. It's OK, I just finished 60 minutes of vigorous Wii Fit free step.

Thanks Erica for contributing my one-thousandth comment on this blog! Here's a toast to all my beloved readers. xoxo

Monstro is getting a card with the most romantic sentiment a wife with two children can offer… “The pregnancy test was negative.” Also, I wrote him a song on my ukulele about what I want to do to a certain part of his anatomy. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!