I've Been Absent Awhile. Here's The Reason.

Hello, all. I'm sorry that I've been absent for 2 months. Time flies when you're having fun! My step-mother fell and broke her leg in two places about 5 or 6 weeks ago. She is diabetic and has serious heart disease. She is currently in a nursing home, in a cast from thigh to foot. She has a 63 year old brother who can do nothing for himself. He, too, is diabetic and is really just a lump. He doesn't even know how to take his own blood sugar reading. She's always done it for him. Anyway, I have moved into her house to take care of him and Rick is at home keeping things going. I still have to work and I have responsibilities at my house as well. I'm stressed to the max right now. I have to be there early morning to prepare his "special" breakfast (can't just sling him a bowl of cereal with milk!), I leave him to his own devices for lunch, and I prepare his dinner at EXACTLY 4:45 PM because he says so. I usually stay overnight, although, I am staying in my own bed tonight. He'll just have to figure out how to put bread in the toaster and push the button. Deals? Coupons? I don't have a clue what's going on right now. We found a good home for the chocolate Lab. The lady who took her called that evening to report that she had bathed her and clipped her nails, treated her ear mites, and boiled a whole chicken and deboned it for the dog's supper. Where do I sign up for treatment like that?! When I dine out at Chili's, they make me PAY for the chicken! Anyway, she has a good home with a 3/4 acre fenced yard to run off her energy. You're going to love this story. The day after my step-mom broke her leg, her sister-in-law, my aunt, my dad's baby sister, called her and asked to borrow her car. She was on morphine and said OK. The next day, my aunt came by, driving that car, and I asked her if her car was in the shop. "Oh, no. It's going to cost $3,500 to fix it and I don't have any money or a job." Well, that told me, as I'm sure you will all agree, that she thought she had just lucked up on a new car for as long as she wanted. I put a stop to that in a hurry. I made her bring it back the next day. She hasn't spoken to me since. I told my step-mom that she thought it was a gift forever. She was upset about it, but, didn't want to rock the boat. All she has for a support group is my dad's family. Her family couldn't give a lesser hoot. Anyway, aunt had said she would bring food for brother and me from time to time. Haven't seen a single green bean out of her in 6 weeks since I took the car away from her. So much for "blood is thicker than water." I know just about now, you are all saying, "quitcherbitchin." I will. I don't ever get any tearpad coupons around here. The inserts have been crummy for a while. I'm living in a coupon desert and my store doubles up to .60. Publix doubles up to .50, but, it's way out of the way and I don't make the effort to go there as my close store does .60 coupons. Work is sporadic. Been working our tails off this week, might not have anything else for two weeks. You just never know. It's crazy. We've had some interesting cases lately. We start with nothing, have to find the person, gather all kinds of information, and figure out how to serve them. We're close to 100%, no matter how crappy the initial information is that we receive from the lawyer. I'm really proud of Rick. He's very good at this. He's getting better every day without me having to tell him what to do. He pulled off a very good one yesterday without any prompting or help from me. He's really, really good at this. Close for now. I will try to stay in touch with you a bit better in future.