It has been a difficult year. My mom has been in and out of the hospital with blood clots and a kidney infection. After initially responding to treatment, her health took a nose dive. She is now under hospice care, and is at home resting peacefully and comfortably. The doctors and nurses say we're looking at days, possibly a couple of weeks. I just want her to be comfortable and at peace.

Okay, so I just found out that water doesn't flush the other direction is Australia.

My whole life has been destroyed.

Sorry to hear that. My grandmother died a few months ago while under Hospice care. It's not fun, but usually by the time Hospice comes around, it means it'll be over quick.

They have pretty strict guidelines about conditions that they can cover when it comes to end-of-life care. So when they show up, you can basically bet the house that it'll be over soon. And sadly, when/if it comes to Medicaid, you might quite literally be betting the house. And the car, and the jewelry, and the savings account... and everything else.

ISO certification audit at workplace. Had to do 6 months work in 3days because some people can’t be bothered to follow procedures and are given leave during important work days like these. Also got passed over for promotion again this year. Guess I gotta find a new employer

This online store is getting boring .

which one?

You just notice that? It's been that way for a while.

Woke up to a very sharp pain in my heel and now walking is severely uncomfortable. Feels like it came out of nowhere.

Well,if it's cold then it could be gout.An old friend of mine got it every Winter but that's not the only times it came on.Diet has a lot to do with it as well.

Cold? I wish, but we're slowly getting there.

does it get cold in South Africa?

Well, depends on what you mean by cold of course :) It routinely dips below freezing here in the interior when there's a cold front, otherwise the minimum temperatures in the middle of winter dance around between 0 and 10 degrees celcius (or 32 and 50 degrees fahrenheit).
It does snow over surprisingly large areas from time to time. The Drakenberg mountains are always capped with snow during winter as well.

in high school we had an exchange student from South Africa and he claimed he had never seen snow. I never knew if he was full of shit.

Perhaps not with his own eyes at least. I only saw snow for the first time with my own eyes when I was 19, and only after I hiked deep into the Drakensberg. Tried to make a snowball but couldn't :P In fact, come to think of it, that's the only time I've seen snow with my own eyes. It briefly snowed in Pretoria several years ago, but it was too little to see where I was. Elsewhere in the city it looked like early morning frost, except it was late afternoon.

Our cat had another seizure not long after the last one, and much more violent this time. Took her to the vet again and had her put to rest. She was 14 years old and her health slowly declining, but still.