Taking care of Dad...

Well, family is so very important to me.  Each training season before I head north I have always had to have everything  put in place for my parents so that I could be gone for 6 - 7 months.  Leaving was always hard, but I was just a phone call away.  I had great caregivers in place and daily phone calls kept tabs on my parents.  Wake up phone calls, reminder phone calls for appointments, etc.  Taking care of all of the bills etc, via phone and internet.

My parents have been my biggest fans, following from the very beginning.   Sadly, my mother passed away December 29, 2011, just two months before my first Iditarod.  I traveled the Iditarod with my mother's ashes around my neck.  She was with me all the way.  I miss her dearly.

This July it was evident that things were not going well for my dad.  The way things were, it would be really hard for me to head north and be able to focus on my training.  Then all of a sudden, my little rental house became vacant.  Timing was amazing...I got to thinking that I could make it into a handicap accessible place for my dad.

So...the project began.  For those of you who know building and I should say remodeling...you know that a 60 year old house can be a nightmare.  And, a nightmare it has been.  It has been one can of worms after another.  What I thought would be a one month fixer upper has become a 3 month project, putting me at least a month behind returning to my home in Alaska.

This project is most definitely a labor of love for my dad.   It is my hopes that it will give him a lot of happiness.  He is so excited about moving out of assisted living and into a house with his caregiver.  His room is what was the single car garage.   I had to raise the floor up nearly 10 inches so that my dad would not have any steps to go up and down.   He is a fall risk.  So now he can walk through a double pocket door entry from the living room to his bedroom suite.   He will also have a "roll in shower"  right off his bedroom.  He uses a walker to get around, so I removed 4 doors and put in pocket doors, therefore, eliminating door swings, making it easier for him to maneuver around the house.

He is so excited about moving in.  Wednesday his piano will be moved in.  Hopefully he will be arriving shortly after.  There is still so much left to do.

After getting off work at 9pm, I decided that I would go to Shari's Restaurant and have dinner and work on updating my blog.  There is a lot of catching up to do.