Rest In Peace, Mom
Memorial Page

Opal Regina Shelley

July 15th, 1923 – May 2nd, 2012

23rd Psalm

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters,
He restoreth my soul,

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me,
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies,
Thou annointest my head with oil,
My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the House of the Lord, forever.

A Very Sad Day In The Life

My realtor called me at 8pm last Thursday (4/26) evening, telling me that the buyer for my 20-ac GC&N Business Complex had postponed the evening's board meeting and sale offer to next Thursday (5/3). That was a disappointment, but it is what it is. If that one fizzles out, we'll re-start negotiations with the winery and get the 20-acre soil tests done, ASAP and bypass the other potential buyer. I made Filet Mignon, Asparagus w/ Fresh Hollandaise, Roasted Potatoes, had some Pistachio Gelato, listened to the Memories, especially the good ones, are what count. For when we are ultimately gone from our all-too short stay on this earth, that's all we'll have in the endless void of time: our memories of others, and the memories others have of us. Mark Levin Show from 6-9pm EST, and called it a day at 9:30. It was raining hard on the Condo's 4 skylights; my favorite music-to-sleep-by.

With a lot more-than-usual on my mind, I was awake on Friday morning at 12:15am, 2am and finally 4:45am, for good. After feeding/watering Murphy, I made a quick Eggs Benedict & Hash Browns Breakfast and coffee, and started work on cleaning-out/sorting/re-stacking the garage's 5 steel shelves; that took almost 3 hours, and I can't believe all the "treasures & memories" that I found, going back to 1985! Holy crap; 3 45gal 3.5-mil Contractor Garbage Bags full of stuff for Tuesday pick-up. It was a beautiful, partly-sunny day, but only a chilly 48°F outside. Suited me just fine.

I went south on Rt 24 to Red Lion to get some errands done, and noticed that gas prices at-the-pump have now dropped another 6¢/gal, on Friday, April 27th: Unleaded Regular (87 oct) is down to $3.79/gal, Unleaded Premium (89oct) is down to $3.89/gal, Premium (93 oct) is down up to $4.09/gal, and Diesel Fuel/Kerosene (K6) has settled down to $4.19/gal. The corrupt, criminal ∅bummer Regime's EPA wants to "crucify oil & gas producers".

Back at the Condo by 11:30am, I made a Chicken Salad Sandwich on Wheat Toast and Potato Chips for lunch, and listened to the Rush Limbaugh Program until 3pm, when I caught-up on 2 of the Chris Plante Show (9-12am) Replays I missed this week, due to other business. I went to

visit Mom, Dad & Becky at 3:15pm. Back by 5pm, I started making enough food for Dad & Becky, for the next 4-5 days, since they didn't have time to go food shopping: I made Maryland Jumbo Lump Crabcakes and Beef-Stuffed Cabbage Rolls, began thawing-out a 3-lb USDA Prime Black Angus cut, for a Pot Roast in my trusty 6qt Rival CrockPot®; I had all the other ingredients on-hand or will a few extras early Sunday morning, when I go food shopping. I'm going back over to Mom & Dad's tomorrow morning with a large cache of food, for them. I listened to Mark Levin's Show until 9pm, and decided I needed sleep more than anything else. Tomorrow would be another busy day.

I was up and about by 6:15am on Saturday, feeding/watering Murphy as usual, making some Breakfast and French-Roast, Turkish-Grind Coffee (from whole, freshly-ground beans) with my Chemex® Drip System, and grabbing a quick shower. After scanning the weather and news sites, I began packing-up the food I'd made, plus numerous bags of canned goods and other things/necessities, for Dad & Becky, since they'd not had time to do any shopping. After several hours, I left North York as traffic was beginning to build on Rt #30, and came home. Rain was on the way.

After listening to "Rush's Week In Review" from 12-3pm, and the "Best of Chris Plante" from 3-4pm, there were "Condo chores" to do, the monthly May Budget Spreadsheet on MS-Works v9 to revise, a food shopping list to get ready for Sunday's 7am trip to Weis Market in East York, feed/water Murphy several times, make a light dinner of BLT Pasta Salad, and get some sleep. The next few days would indeed be trying times for Dad, Becky & me.

Up at 5:30am on Sunday, I finally had a good night's sleep. I fed/watered Murphy, had some Red Grapefruit Sections, made a breakfast of Cheddar Cheese Grits, Sunny-Side-Up Eggs & Texas Toast and coffee, and left for the supermarket at 7:15am. At 29°F, it felt like February; clear, crisp and frost-filled air, and the pollen count was finally down. The roads were *absolutely empty* except for a family of geese crossing the road, which I of course stopped for, with blinkers on, also stopping an oncoming Springettsbury Police Cruiser. He waved and smiled.

I made one of my "Super Pot Roasts", with a beautifully-marbled, 3-lb USDA Prime Black Angus cut, in the 6qt Rival CrockPot® with chopped scallions, peeled whole Vidalia onions, peeled whole small Idaho potatoes, peeled baby carrots, peeled whole garlic cloves, cut celery, a touch of A1 Steak Sauce®, unground Kosher Sea Salt, whole black peppercorns, 32oz of Swanson® beef stock – after

searing the roast coated in flour, on all surfaces (6; count 'em) in a smoking-hot, well-seasoned, cast-iron skillet – on the CrockPot's "low setting" for 8hrs, and finished-it-off at 7hrs with fresh-chopped Italian Parsley, fresh-ground Kosher Sea Salt, fresh-ground black peppercorns, minced garlic, thick-sliced Portabello mushrooms and peeled/drained whole San Marzano® Tomatoes (the very best, anywhere) at the end, after it all cooks-down. I'll let it cool overnight, and take it over to Dad & Becky, on my Monday morning visit to Mom. It'll be good for 2-3 meals for them. Mom isn't eating any food now, and barely drinking water. The Hospice personnel are meeting with Dad & Becky this Sunday morning, to get a plan in place for Mom's final period of care at home. The end is getting closer by the day.

Temps made it to 65°F by 6pm on Sunday; it was "severe clear" and nice to just be outside in the fresh air, for a while. One of my Condo neighbors and his wife – "snowbirds" – had just returned from Florida, and I caught-him-up on local events since they'd left in October. For some reason, my usually super-fast Power-Pass Pro InterNet connection from CommieCast, was burping and farting on/off/on/off all-afternoon, and I shut-it down around 6:45pm. After checking IP/DNS/Gateway numbers, I finished the Pot Roast's 8hr timed cooking, and got it ready for transport in the morning. Murphy needed feeding/watering. And I decided to make it an early evening around 8pm; I had a long list of things for Monday and wanted to get some extra sleep. No argument from Murphy, relaxing in the Sunroom.

I was up at 4:30am on Monday, fed & watered Murphy and went back to sleep until 5:30. It was another cold, cloudy day with rain & t-storms, on the way. I took the Pot Roast over to Dad & Becky, spent some time with Mom, and left after 3hrs. The Hospice Nurse was arriving and Becky had decided to stay another week. And I just found out, painfully, that I now have an umbilical hernia, and will probably need outpatient laproscopic surgery to repair it, someday. Crap; at 62, after all I've done, been through and still need to do, I just didn't need that thing right now. After a single pack of snack crackers – I really wasn't hungry anymore – I listened to the Mark Levin Show from 6-9pm, shut it all down at 9:30, after the rains started beating on the skylights, and just as I crawled into bed.

I slept-in until 5:30am on the cloudy/rainy/51°F Tuesday, fed/watered Murphy, made Garlic Grits & Eggs for breakfast and coffee, did some "light" Condo chores and left for the 20-acre GC&N Complex to check on things, change several burnt-out light bulbs, bring back my Office's computer cart, run some overdue errands in the area, and get back by 10:30 to talk to my 2 cleaning ladies about taking care of Dad's home 1-2x/month, after Mom's gone. That done, I left to be with Dad & Becky, at Mom's bedside for the rest of the morning.

I got back around 1pm and worked on the final copy for Mom's Memorial Page, to be permanently-housed on my corporate/personal server. The cleaning ladies did their usual great job. Murphy needed watering/feeding and I made CrabCakes, Garden Bean Salad for lunch, and had some Ocean Spray® Diet Blueberry Juice. Temps had jumped to a very muggy 77°F, and the morning rain had stopped. Personally, I'd rather have the cold rainfall than the warm, muggy weather. But hey, that's just me. After skipping dinner, I was emotionally-drained and physically-tired by 9pm, so I shut the place down for some sleep.

Murphy had me awake at 4am for his regular morning feeding/watering, and it was raining again. Beautiful, peaceful rain; we need it so much. I scanned my regular weather and news sites and decided to go back to sleep until 6am. I'd already laid-out everything for breakfast the night before, as usual. I had a quick breakfast of Quaker Oats® Peaches & Cream Sugar Oatmeal with Fresh-Grated Cinnamon & coffee, and went over to see Mom, Dad and Becky, around 9:30am. After working on revisions to Mom's Memorial Web Page, on my server, with Dad and Becky, I left and came home to make the actual xHTML-CSS changes and FTP them up to the server. I am depressed; no doubt about it, but I accept it and the process, and am ready for it to happen. There's not much "news" which I feel like writing about, right now, Every day which goes by, I miss someone else who has died, either prematurely or of old age, and is now gone forever from my life on this earthly plane. I mourn their passing, but rejoice in the fact that we once crossed Paths and shared Life, Love and Fellowship, together. even though a lot is happening in the world. I don't even feel like going to "The Cabin", either. I had an Egg & Olive Salad Sandwich for lunch, skipped dinner, listened to "The Savage Nation", for a change-of-pace. Then, just before 7pm, the phone rang and I knew what it was before I even answered.

Becky called; Mom passed away at 6:50pm. I went over immediately and stayed with Dad and her until the wonderful VNA Hospice Nurse had completed her part of the procedure, Mom & Dad's Primary Care Physician (PCP) was notified so he could complete the rest, all meds were disposed of by the VNA Hospice Nurse, the very-respected Etzweiler Funeral Home arrived to take Mom to their facility, and I left for home at 10:45, finally calling it quits at 11:30pm. Tomorrow's

another day for mourning her passing, but celebrating her long, full and wonderful life with us. The much-needed rain continued and the t-storms shook the whole area. Murphy was unnerved by the lightening/thunder, and woke me up several times during the night's storms.

It was still raining when I got-up at 5:00am on Thursday, fed & watered Murphy, made a quick breakfast of Cream of Wheat with Fresh-Grated Nutmeg & Cinnamon and coffee, got ready for the meeting at the Funeral Home with Dad and Becky. I went over at 9am and picked them up. We set the Memorial Service for Saturday, September 8th, 2011, at 10:00am, at nearby Mt Rose Cemetery, with Etzweiler Co. Afterward, I came back to the Condo, fed/watered Murphy, made a Roast Beef, Cheese & Tomato Sandwich for lunch, and started calling several cleaning ladies to talk about taking-over the 2x/month cleaning of Mom & Dad's large home, now that he's all alone there. My cleaning ladies aren't able to handle that large a project, right now. I also had several revisions to make in May's Personal/Condo Budget to make on my MS-Works v10 Program. Tonight's the prospective buyer's BOD (board of director) vote on purchasing my 20-ac Business' GC&N Complex.

It's going to be a strange feeling on Mother's Day, without Mom here, from now on.

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