We used the money we had earmarked for getting our leaky toilet fixed to help pay for the cremation - which obviously couldn't be put off. And while we'll be ok, as I'm waiting for a replacement check from a former job, it still makes me rather cranky to know that I have to put off calling the plumber.

I appreciate all of the comments and good thoughts, although I have to admit that I am happily avoiding dealing with any more of this mess at the moment.

Instead, I am baking. Baked goods make all things better.

I'm sitting in a hotel zoning on infomercials while my husband attempts to get the kiddo to eat breakfast downstairs, and I'm still just..blitzed after this week.

Sunday, brandus told me he hadn't heard from his mom in a week. This is unusual, as they usually chat once a day. He called his uncle, her brother - uncle hadn't heard from her since Tuesday. Worried, he called the cops to go check her house, as she lives 5 hours away from us.

She isn't at the house.

I suggest calling the hospital, as her health has been poor, which is why we were moving her down to our town before Thanksgiving.

He calls the hospital, and there she is, and has been there since Thursday. She drove herself and checked herself in with an infected cat bite, but hadn't called because she "couldn't figure out how to use the phone."

Um. Then you could have used your cell?

Brandus talked to the nurse, and told her of all of our concerns about his mother's health, which included her getting out of breath easily, her inability to walk more than 6 feet without having to hold on to something, etc. We were told they weren't sure when she'd be released, so Brandus made flight arrangements to fly up Tuesday morning - leaving Monday to arrange lesson plans for the week.

We find out Monday at 4 or 5 that she was released from the hospital at 1. We hadn't heard from her. We called several times, called and checked the kennel where she had not picked up the dog.

We waited until 7 or 8 before calling the cops again.

They went past her house - the car was there. The lights were on. They could see into her bedroom and she wasn't in bed.

We authorized a "dire need" entry, and they found her on the kitchen floor. She had fallen and hit her head, and she was dead.

4 hours after she left the hospital, she was dead.

Brandus is grim faced and easily irritated - we've been up here dealing with everything since Tuesday - we managed to get his plane ticket refunded and drove up, all 3 of us. She had told us multiple times that Brandus' name had been put on accounts and on the house and that she had a will, but all of that was a lie.

Voldemort has been a rockstar - he shouldn't have to know that we have to clean up the blood where his Mimi died. He shouldn't have had to see the condition of the house - where it was so bad the first day we wouldn't let him come inside. He has been kept happy playing with my husband's original transformers and hot wheels and helping us by counting all of the change we found in the house ($36.78 at last count).

We managed to get a lot done - cremation done, animals found and relocated to a no-kill shelter, cleaner hired to help, estate salesperson shown the house - but there is so much left to do.

The issue at this point is that we can't access her accounts yet, so everything has to be paid out of pocket. The cremation was almost $2000, the cleaner was $300 (and worth every penny for me not having to deal with the toilet and the bathtub and the cat feces everywhere), the kennel for the dog was $98, the cost of staying in a hotel for 4 nights, eating out, gas, etc...The rest of the month will be very tight. We had to split up the cost of the cremation onto two different credit cards - we couldn't pay for it out of our account or else we wouldn't be able to buy groceries for the rest of the month.

We'll be back up over thanksgiving, and we hope to be given access to her accounts then - we can't afford to pull up and replace the carpet by ourselves, and the cleaner needs to come back to deal with the deep cleaning.

My head hurts. So much to do.

Hypothetically, if one were to have discovered an entire bag of melted gummy candy all over one's car upholstery, what exactly should one do to remove the very gross mess?

Ugh.