Back-tracking slightly, I never got a chance to update about my weekend. Saturday wasn’t anything thrilling but Sunday was a mini adventure. I woke up around 9am to shower and get ready for my sister to come and pick me up around 11am. We then went to mom’s and eventually started the long (looooong) trek to Inverness, Florida.
Inverness, as Wikipedia tells me, is the county seat of Citrus County. As of 2007, it apparently has a population just north of 7,000 people. What Wikipedia doesn’t tell you is that it’s in the middle of freakin’ nowhere. It also doesn’t explain the fact that it’s redneck central. It’s lovely, rural countryside with actual low, rolling hills (a feature unique to more northern parts of Florida) but it’s kinda scary in terms of the people who live there.
Getting there involves about 80 miles and 1hr 45 minutes according to google maps. It also involves driving through a total of five counties starting at my house. Heh. So yeah, it’s kinda the middle of nowhere.
Why Inverness then? Well, my Nanny (my mom’s mom, aka my maternal grandmother) lives up there now in a old, historic hotel-turned-assisted living facility in Inverness. The hotel is over 100 years old and has a very unique style in that it feels like it’s still very much out of that past time. Not in a bad way, but in a more antique way.
One of my mom’s sister’s lives in nearby Crystal River and when they looked for a place for Nanny to live, this was really a good fit for her. She’s 93 (turning 94 in August) and her dementia is too bad to allow her to live on her own any longer. But she’s got her own room which is basically like a studio apartment with it’s own bathroom. It’s nice. Two windows let in a lot of light and because it’s a converted hotel, each room has it’s own door that locks just like any normal apartment. But the benefit is that she gets all her meals and such made for her and they have actives and a formal dinning room and such. It’s nice. She’s even apparently made friends who she eats with everyday. (Before, in her house, she used to just sit by herself day after day and didn’t really socialize.)
So it was myself, my sister, my mom, my aunt and Nanny together just hanging out and celebrating Mother’s Day together. We didn’t do terribly much – set up Nanny’s new phone with speed dial and took a little walk – but we all had a pleasant day.
It was a little after 8pm when I got home so I was pretty beat. But it was nice of my sister to do all the driving for us. I know my mom enjoyed us all getting together too.