Little things.

toolbeltexpert

Just thinking about all the little things that help me. 

Oldies music, makes my dw happy, which makes me happy. I play music in the car,she likes car country, Brooks and Dunn. Boot scoot and boggie.

Ice cream seems to have a magical power over dementia, it's mere mention stops the dementia demon dead in its tracks. Well most of the time, funny thing I have given dw all the ice cream she wants, she hasn't gained a pound. Well it's the dementia diet and it's not popular any where!

Boat rides. Not a real social party but a state park pontoon excursion, is a great escape, no it doesn’t compare to a Alaskan cruise, but there is so much beautiful country side. Some day it will be the nature channel, because the price of gas has hit 10 a gallon, So do it now! I pumped gas when .25 a gallon and we checked the oil and cleaned the windshield.

I refuse to stay at home! we will go somewhere everyday eat all the ice cream we want until she is no longer able to go, and I know that! So I do it now.

All my dementia family friends, lots of good wisdom, people who get it.i am sorry for all those who have progressed past this. I have read others talk about they wished they did something. Sorry I do not remember who that was, but that's good advice.

AnnMB

We go on lots of drives and this spring looked at the magnolia trees, daffodils, tulips and other flowers in bloom. We watched the country turn from tired and brown to green and fresh.

We also eat ice- cream -- soft chocolate vanilla swirl in a cup with a spoon. We eat it in the garage on a warm afternoon. Ice cream and fruit is a favorite dessert.

Planting the garden was hard but we finally got it in. The kids put in the tomatoes asking lots of questions such as "Did I do this right, Grumpy?" He felt important. We talk about what is coming up in each of the vegetable boxes even during his rough spells.

I'm not perfect but I'm trying. I hope we can go buy blueberries at the farm this year, eat fresh strawberries, and see a few places while we drive around. I get angry more with the disease than DH and will lash out at him. I'm trying not to and just let him rant on and on when he's having a bad time. I'm realizing he is has to over focus on things, thinks he's an expert on a lot of items, and that the rest of us know nothing.

What we do with the little things is what we will remember when we no longer can do them.

Ed1937

Nature, ice cream, and music. I don't know how anyone could not like that. That pontoon sounds pretty special too. Go for it!

Stuck in the middle

My wife developed a craving for chocolate sundaes and malts during her first pregnancy.  50+ years later, the craving persists.  Funny how that happens.

Joydean

My dh enjoys going for rides, there are a lot of ranch’s in our area and he loves seeing the little colts playing. Ice cream, goodness that must be a dementia thing. Dh goes through 3 half gallon container’s each week. These are from braums and he has to have a large swirl to go. Golden oldies going down the road! What ever makes him feel happy we will do. It is all about the little things and making good memories at this time.

toolbeltexpert

Reading all your posts about your good stuff is good stuff.

Joyce

 I thought my dw was putting it away, 2 of those almost half gallons. Moose tracks or Turtle tracks. Made extra special with carmel sauce,health bar pieces and a little debbie nutterbutter. Which was the most popular snack in every mcf I visited right behind ice cream.

Ann

my dw has lots of gardens,most of the flowers are just above the weeds,I can't do it all, and weedeating is a job I hit here and there with a little electric trimmer. I only mowed 3 hrs and still have several acres to take care of. Loved your saying

"What we do with the little things is what we will remember when we no longer can do them." 

Ed

 we did a pontoon ride yesterday about 1 1/2 hrs away. Lake is only 350 acres so the one hour ride was perfect. 75 degrees occluded sky pleasant tourists. I try to do 2 or 3 a year.

Stuck

 I never really thought about it,they say first things in last things out. Has Ice cream has got a special place in our memories, early childhood pleasant tasting? Cause it sure sounds like a dementia delight with most anyway.

Stuck in the middle

When I was a boy, we used to get together at Grandpa's farm with all my aunts, uncles, and cousins and make freezers of ice cream.  Add blackberries picked on the north fencerow and a baseball game, and that windy hilltop was pretty close to Heaven.

I can't go back there, but I think we need to make a Braums run this evening.

Ed1937

Stuck in the middle wrote:

My wife developed a craving for chocolate sundaes and malts during her first pregnancy. 

Does anyone remember the lunch counters at Woolworth's? We sat down for lunch (my wife's first pregnancy), and she ordered hot peppers and a glass of milk! And she never liked milk.

Joydean

Ed, I remember, my first job while in high school, was working at Woolworths! 

toolbeltexpert

Ed and Joyce we had a Woolworth where I lived, one year I wanted to get my mother a birthday gift. I bought her a penny in the year she was born, when my mom passed that was the only thing I wanted still wrapped in the collectors case.

Jo C.

My very first job at age 15 was at Woolworth's.  I remember feeling so very grown up having my lunch at their lunch counter:  A BLT and coke every time, with my own money.  Gosh; what memories - especially one day  when someone let all the canaries and parakeets out of their cages and they flew all over the store. 

Ice cream.  That and watermelon in my pregnancies.  I think it is such a deeply fond memory of our childhoods and also, not just the taste, but the pleasant sensory feeling of the ice cream in our mouths and on the tongue; it is a peaceful sort of repast and certainly a wonderful dementia "med" with the wonderful capability to calm and gain cooperation. (Sh-h-h-h, don't tell the drug companies, they will try and corner the market with "special" dementia ice cream and sell it at outlandish prices.)

Pontoon boat rides; how very cool is that!  Wonderful.

J

toolbeltexpert

Jo C  You made me laugh, please don't let big pharmacy steal my joy. The pontoon ride has been the best for us. We used to have a small boat and we went several nights a week to Plymouth harbor and would fish and watch the sun go down. We had both taken coast guard certification. I'll bet it cost me more for the gas to get to the state park than the price of the tickets. 20$ for two. Cheap enough.  Loved your sorry about your first job and paying with your own money, I can remember that as well.  Well I just told dw she has a cat scan today. Dw,When did that happen? Why do I need a Cat scan. Me, Those bumps on the neck. Those ares seem to be going away so it's probably the last time I get to use that fib. She said I should never have told you I don't want to go thru these doctors. They just do it for the money, lol,lol,lol.  We are gonna get a chicken sandwich,fries and a shake.  She has great cholesterol levels! Oh I never did answer your all your questions,sorry on that other post I will gotta go!

Faith,Hope,Love

Thanks TBE!  That helps to think of all the little things.  I recall the Woolworths lunch counter too.  The one in our little town was all stainless and shiny with swiveling stools.  If I was good on shopping trips with Mom and Grandma we would each get a Coke and share an order of french fries.  That was the best!!

I also realize that one of the things that made me happiest was sitting on the front porch with Mom and either snapping green beans or shelling peas.  The breeze was so cool blowing across that porch.

toolbeltexpert

Fhl so you had an old fashion SNAP CHAT.

Faith,Hope,Love

Exactly Tbe!  I also remember we would go out into the fields and pick tomatoes and strawberries that the pickers left.  We never had air conditioning, so Mom had all the kitchen windows open.  It seems like it was always the hottest day of the year when she would boil the tomatoes to remove the skins and then can them for use during the winter.  I can still smell the tomatoes cooking on the stove.  Mmmmm!

Stuck in the middle

My mother canned with the windows closed, because she believed a cool breeze might crack the hot jars as she took them out of the pressure cooker.  Talk about hot!

We planted corn and beans together, Indian style.  The beans climbed the cornstalks and added nitrogen to the soil, benefitting the corn.  There was not a breath of breeze between those corn rows and picking was hot work.  Not as hot as canning, though.

I actually dreamed about my grandfather last night, thanks to this conversation probably.  It was nice to have an intelligent conversation, even if it was with the voices in my head.  Thanks to all of you for bringing it up.

Bob in LW

 

Does anyone remember the lunch counters at Woolworth's? We sat down for lunch (my wife's first pregnancy), and she ordered hot peppers and a glass of milk! And she never liked milk.

I not only remember the Woolworth lunch counters but know where one is still in existence. It's in Bakersfield, California.  The store is no longer a Woolworths, but the lunch counter is still there and operating just like it did 50 years ago.  The locals consider it a historic treasure.

Joydean

Bob that’s amazing! I remember picking cotton. I was only 6 or 7, all day bending over was not fun.so I thought I was really smart, why drag that bag behind me. I would pick a bunch and make little piles, then go back and put it in the bag. Well my brother was a little smarter, he just put all my cotton in his bag! Never trust your brother! But he was and still is my hero!! The fun was peeling peaches out under the peach tree. 

Going back to earlier times is good. Sad that young people today will never know what we are talking about. 

toolbeltexpert

Stuck I have heard the older, well older than me talk about not letting a breeze hit a hot jar. And when you mentioned the beans and corn lots of folks still do that. They double crop rubber trees and corn together in Guatemala.

FHL I worked on a farm weeding tomato plants in long rows talk about hot. But when the tomatoes were coming in I would bring a salt shaker and eat tomatoes. 

Joyce that's so funny about your brother. I had never seen cotton till I saw these huge sq bales of cotton in West Tennessee. 

Here's a fun fact about me I had never had a Sausage Biscuit and gravy and never knew what okra till I moved to TN, in 1993. My dw could make great fried okra. 

Faith,Hope,Love

Joydean you are so right.  It is a shame younger people will never get to do some of the things we did.  There was a farmer down the road from us.  He raised red raspberries.  During the summer my sister and I would pick them.  We made 10 cents a quart.  We would pack a lunch to take with us.  At lunch time we would eat it on the farmers picnic table and his wife would bring us fresh squeezed lemonade.  My sister and I would walk home with money in our pockets and thought we'd struck it rich.  Around Halloween, the farmer would call my Mom and say tell the girls to bring their wagon.  He would load us up with a huge pumpkin.  We must have looked hilarious trying to get that thing home.

Dio

TBE, thanks for the little things reminder! While DH is still somewhat lucid, I've been finding things to do that he may enjoy and/or distract him just a bit (from remembering his illness). We've gone to almost all of the Bay Area regional parks, gardens, little train rides, lakes and all--more than I ever knew existed. This weekend we visited Araceli Farm's lavender field in Dixon, CA, and had a blast, as he loves the scent of lavender. We've gone to Fenton's 2x within the last 2 weeks and each had either coffee ice cream sodas (which Fenton's is still serving) or root beer floats. So far, we haven't gained a pound. Today, we'll catch a matinee of Top Gun Maverick (haven't been to the theaters in 8 months). Yes, we need to be reminded of these simple pleasures. It's quite cathartic for me as well.

Ed1937

It's been a while since we've done any canning, but I still have a pressure canner and a cold packer. And those red raspberries have my mouth watering. We had a good patch of them at our last house. Now I don't even have a tomato plant.

AnnMB

Yesterday was a wonderful day for us. DH was lucid and we planted cucumber seeds, looked at the peas coming through the soil, watched grandson finish weed whacking the ditch and went to see daughter-in-law to order warm chocolate chip cookies for snack Wednesday night when I go grocery shopping. DH's sense pf humour was out in full force and we both laughed many times during the day. I will cherish the day to help me get through the rough ones.

Canning -- DH and I canned around 250-300 jars a year between 2010 and 2015. We had 11 fruit trees and a good size garden in our back yard. DH renovated the downstairs kitchen so I could have a fabulous area to do all the canning in.

We still have a small garden here -- 8 boxes and family and friends enjoy the fresh veggies we grow. DH takes pride in his garden and we will enjoy this one as it may be the last one he will take part in. He did stress until the tomatoes were planted on Sunday. Couldn't do it earlier as there were frost warnings until then. We will plant another row of carrots when he is able to. His favorite job -- watering the plants every night. It calms him down immensely which allows him to sleep well.

toolbeltexpert

Ed this is the first time in 29 years no garden at all. I have a 5 foot tiller and a walk behind tiller. I did a little one last year everything I picked sat till it was bad,dw didn't seem to be able, so I will skip the anxiety of having it sit around this year. I am gonna miss fried squash and okra.