Time to start cleaning

Mom seems to really like the Day Club. She's asking every day now what time she has to be ready to go. Her schedule was originally W-Th-F. But I changed it to M-W-F so that she goes every other day and doesn't have 4 straight days that she doesn't go. That was enough time for her to forget that she goes...and forget that she likes it.  It's so good for her to be around people her own age and still be able to come home at the end of the day.  And it has to make me a better caregiver. That free time for me is going to be great when I can stop and enjoy it. If I ever do. The first free day I had I spent cleaning her room. It's hard to get in there and start throwing stuff out when she's right there. But she's become such a hoarder of odd things, I had to get in there just to clear it all out. Every rubber band on every newspaper that comes to the house is wrapped around her denture cup because, "you never know when you might need a rubber band." And if it rains they put them in little orange plastic bags. Those are very neatly folded and stuffed in various places around her dresser. She stashes any and all pencils she might find...and then when she takes a notion to do a puzzle she can never find a pencil. And neither can I unless I go in her room or look in her purse and find a bundle for her.  And books, too.  She's always been one to read before she goes to bed so she has books and magazines stashed on her nightstand.  Most of them came from my bookshelf and she insists on a different one every night. She wore one old paperback to a frazzle. The pages were all falling out of it and she spent more time trying to keep them in order than trying to read the book, but she was kind of attached to it so she always had it by her chair or by the bed. So, the first day she was gone all day I cleared off her dresser and made new picture collages for her wall. I put books away and threw out the old paperback. And that was just a start. Since then Stan has been on vacation or I've had the grandkids, so I haven't been able to do much more, but when summer starts winding down, I can get back at it.