Blogging Tired

Last night I was blogging tired. I'm not sure why I was so sleepy but I could barely keep my eyes open and my mind wasn't working as well as it usually does. I think that it must have something to do with when I come home to visit my folks.
My parents live in a teeny tiny little town in central Texas. Even though its only 2 hours from Austin, its so far removed from the rest of the world. Here people don't have computers, they don't use cell phones and they still write checks for everything. From the moment I arrive here everything starts to slow down. It drives me crazy and reminds me of all the reasons I had to get out of here as fast as I could when I was a kid.
Aside from the effects it has on me (and my metabolism...I eat 10X more food here because I'm so bored), living in this town has turned my parents into a couple of hermits. I can imagine them 30 years ago living in Dallas, going to parties and hanging out with friends. These days, my parents don't really have any friends, don't go to any social functions except their once monthly domino game, and have no clue what's going on in the world around them. They're just not exposed to it. I think I wrote about this last year around this time when I was trying to convince my dad that he and mom could be on the same cell phone plan and not have to pay two separate bills for each of their phones.
My main reason for coming home this week is to help my grandmother get settled into our house. She has been ill and the doctors finally told her it was time to go to a nursing home. Of course, she would have none of that so it was agreed that she would take over my brother's former room. I still think she's not that happy about it but this is an easier arrangement for my mom who will no longer have to take care of both houses.
Speaking of my brother, my enabler father has given him our lake house to live in. This makes me so f'ing mad. The lake house is supposed to belong to the family. With him there, no one else can use it. When he's done using it (read:when he goes to jail finally) it is doubtful that the place will be in any shape to be used by the family unless we invest major elbow grease cleaning it up. The last time I was there he had been the last one to use it and it took Josh and I a full day of cleaning to make it tolerable and even after that we didn't walk on the floor barefoot.
Last night I had half of an Ambien and slept like a corpse until 2pm today. I wanted to get up earlier and was a little frustrated with myself for being such a lazy bones. I'm going to aim for getting up early again tomorrow so I can finish organizing my mother's freezer. Today I reorganized the refrigerator and the pantry and although she wasn't pleased with me "messing up her system" I didn't care because both areas really needed some form of organization. My mom is one of those people who will buy something every time she goes to the store whether she needs it or not. The items she frequently buys are white chocolate candy coating, cream cheese and artichoke hearts. I'm only halfway done with the process and already have found no less than 10 packages of candy coating, 12 packages of cream cheese and 4 big jars of artichoke hearts. I also threw out a ton of stuff including spice jars I recognized from childhood.
I get so frustrated with my parents because they are crazy pack rats. There is no logic in some of the things they have squirrelled away and our house is becoming less of a home and more of a storage facility every time I come to visit. All of the drawers in my room have been filled by clothing outgrown by my family, games never played, bed linens and comforters from every decorating scheme used by my mother since we built the house in 1979, books and notepads from when I was in grade school, etc. These are just the areas I have access to, I shudder to think what lives in their closet or in my dad's office or in the attic.
Someday I will have to go through it all. For now I'm just going to help myself to another piece of pie and pretend its not there.