Time For Another Change

This week certainly ended up differently than expected! I have not really spoken about Mother's health for quite a long time but it has and is impacting the jewelry business which is why I would like to explain a bit about what is going on. When Kuochun and I left for Mount Prospect in June everything was alright with Mother in her senior apartment but things went downhill over the summer. Much of the time, she was either in the hospital or a skilled nursing facility due to her ongoing heart and lung problems. This last go around, she did not rebound as quickly as the other hospital visits. She was only home for less than two days and had to be rushed back to the hospital again due to toxic CO2 buildup in her system. While in the hospital, a Cardiomems device was implanted in her pulmonary artery to measure the changes in pressure. She needs to rest her head on a pillow daily to capture this measurement, which can detect a potential problem about three weeks before symptoms manifest. The hope is that she will break the cycle of becoming symptomatic and needing to be hospitalized. If pressures change, it will be reported to her doctor and then he will be able to adjust medications etc to combat the problem. She has been in a skilled nursing facility for nearly a month now and the staff has been able to stabilize her. So far there has not been a need to adjust anything.

Unfortunately Mother is no longer able to live on her own and assisted living was recommended. She has been taking this past month to decide what she would like to do - stay in Scottsdale, go back to Chicago or go to New York where Rachel could visit her year round. The most seamless thing to do is for Mother to stay in Scottsdale, where I could arrange for local movers to move her belongings from her current apartment to assisted living and she would not have to make an out of state trip. The only drawback is I cannot visit her while I am in Mount Prospect. On Friday, Kuochun and I visited a local facility about 12 minutes away from home, right next door to the senior center where we work out. Although the people were nice, aesthetically the facility was not up to par. It is quite old and looks like it was a hotel at one point. The bathroom especially was not good. It had the same shower door that we had in Park Ridge in the '70s when I was a kid, a rattletrap with an aluminum frame and textured glass. I have not so great childhood memories of having to scrub those shower door tracks with a toothbrush.

Kuochun and I went directly to see Mother after the meeting to let her know what we found and while we were there, a staff member came to let us know that Mother was going to be discharged on Monday morning! Thankfully a gentleman from the home health agency gave us the name of an agent who could help us find a good assisted living facility as there are so many here in the Scottsdale area. The agent Amy was amazing, she totally picked up what I was putting down about what Mother would like and I spent the day with her Saturday touring three facilities. They were all top notch but in the end I recommended and Mother chose Acoya Shea, which is about a 20-minute local drive north of us in Scottsdale. I told Mother it was the smallest of the three and reminded me of a boutique hotel. Her current apartment building is great but Acoya Shea is actually even nicer! The building is only a year old and has all the up to date finishes. The smaller size of the building makes everything very convenient. The outdoor space is really nice and there is a little dog run for when the girls come to visit. I was told the sunsets are spectacular. There is a cafe as well as a restaurant with lots of great food choices every day including a soup of the day (Mother is a huge soup person.) For a small charge, we can also eat meals with her and we will definitely give it a try. The specialty rooms are beautifully decorated and all great spaces to spend time. The salon and exercise room both have floor to ceiling windows. The staff delivers the packages to everyone's door at the end of their shift every day, rather than the residents having to get them from a package locker. Hopefully we can get to that point again but the outings are up her alley, such as the Heard Museum and a local holiday market.

Kuochun was not able to go with me on Saturday because we had an appointment to have the girls groomed in the middle of the day. However, after a long meeting with Mother on Sunday morning and the facility decision made, I made arrangements to go back to Acoya Shea in the afternoon, choose an apartment and put the deposit down and I picked Kuochun up along the way. He thought the facility was tremendous and agreed with me that the studio apartment was the way to go. The bed / living space is one open area with the bed space defined by carpeting. There is a kitchen area, pantry, front loading side by side washer and dryer, walkthrough closet with hanging space on both sides and a large bathroom. There were a couple of one bedroom units available but they were both located on the street side of the building and there was traffic noise. They also had large balconies which I did not see Mother using due the noise and suburban view, including Raising Cane's directly across the street. I had seen about 25 different units on Saturday and did not remember that the studio was on the other side of the building which has a view of the parking lot with permanent covers over the spaces and Camelback Mountain in the distance. But the big plusses are that the location is quiet and south facing which means there will be no glaring sunlight coming in through the windows. The studio was more economical as well because a big premium is placed on the balcony space. One of the balcony units is on the fourth floor and I stepped out there but since I am afraid of heights it would not be a place I would spend any time.

I only took a few quick snaps of the actual unit because at the time I did not realize that the staged unit was available for rent. It was really helpful to see the units staged because they actually look larger with the furniture than they do empty. Mother has a full size bed with a beautiful frame and the unit was also staged with a full size bed. She will need to downsize a bit but other than a possible dining table and chair should not need to purchase anything.

As far as taking possession, it will take a little extra time because the staging furniture and accessories need to be removed but we took the advice to appeal the decision to release Mother on Monday morning. It was suggested that we file the appeal on Sunday in order to try and give us until Wednesday to receive the decision. It has been a year of turmoil and change for sure between setting Mother up in her current apartment, selling her Arlington Heights home and now having to start over again in a new apartment. She was not allowed to leave skilled nursing in order to see anything so I sure hope she will be satisfied with the new location.

Turning now to jewelry, at the beginning of the week I was able to post five Navajo-made cuff bracelets (four sterling silver and one nickel silver) including the one above by the famous Tahe family.

The highlights of the sales for the week were this beautiful naja necklace and gorgeous pair of onyx earrings by Federico. I also sold the adorable vintage watch tips with turquoise hearts and a couple of the boutique brand tops. All of the sales were on eBay except for the onyx earrings which sold on Etsy. As I have mentioned before, I am very pleased with my crosslisting program Vendoo and took a big leap this week by signing up for their unlimited listings plan on Sunday. It was an extra 10% off for Black Friday weekend, the largest discount they have ever offered and I took the yearly plan to maximize the savings. The total cost will be about twice what I was paying but I only received 25 listings per month. I will no longer have the pressure of creating the listings before the monthly deadline because I can create as many as I want, whenever I want. This is especially helpful right now. Slowly but surely I have been working on the backlog of draft listings I accumulated when I did not have time to post them. The backlog was as large as 350 at one point and now I have it down to nearly 200. I will be glad when the drafts are used up so I can create and publish listings the same day. In the Vendoo system, their date is the day the draft was created, not the day it was posted online. This causes items to go out of order and makes them a little more challenging to locate at times. I suppose though I could just delete the drafts as I am now on unlimited.

I nearly finished photographing and pricing the big load of vintage Native American cuff bracelets I received. All of the cuffs with stones have been photographed and I have about a dozen more to price. Then I have about a dozen more without stones that need photos and pricing. The good news is after the pop-up sale I will be able to get any cuffs that do not sell at the pop-up online pretty quickly since the photos are ready. Even though it is tedious to shoot a bunch of photos at once, it really is the most efficient way to do things as opposed to completely finishing one item at a time.

New items are also coming in and I priced a bunch of rings, mostly with genuine gemstones. Many of them are adjustable and I really like the way they adjust with an elegant bypass design near the top, rather than a wrap or separation at the bottom which can pinch fingers. I will offer them at the pop-up sale first and then send them back home for the jewelry caravan. These are just a few of the rings but there will be amethyst, carnelian, dalmation jasper, labradorite, moonstone, onyx, pink dahlia, purple mojave, spiny turquoise and more. My quick picture does not do them justice, they are super pretty in person. These rings were purchased individually and were difficult to get because they are in very high demand! One stone that I just love that I had never heard of before is aurora opal. So far I will have a beautiful ring with a pair of aurora opal stones with carved floral designs. I did buy a bunch of these rings and will try them out. If they prove to be popular I will work to get more. I did gravitate towards hearts but there are other shapes as well.

Because of the three straight days arranging assisted living for Mother, it has me thinking that I may need to postpone the pop-up sale for a week. I was hoping to keep my schedule of the first weekend of December as I have done the past two years but circumstances are making that a challenge. I will decide for sure on Monday.

Until next time!