Holidays

I promise to write much more soon -- this was taken on Christmas Day.
Hope everyone had a great holiday.

Christmas Time

It's a few days before Christmas and all through our house it is pretty quiet. Alan is home and studying hard since his finals are January 4th. What a great way to spend your Christmas vacation. Ralph is taking some time off while Alan is home. We are trying to visit with friends when we can and relax at the same time. Alan's girlfriend, Jennifer and her parents and sister are coming over for dinner on Christmas as well as some other friends. That's what Christmas is about -- spending time with those you care for and all of these people are as close to family as we can get down here in the South. I miss being with my family in Illinois, but maybe some year we will try to do that.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and I'll post again soon -- I promise!

Funny things

It's hard to admit doing stupid things -- I certainly have my share of that lately. I think that I need to stop trying to cook when others are not in the house. On Friday, I decided to try to make some cookies. I got out my ingredients and turned the oven on. A few minutes later there was smoke coming from the oven --- when I opened it I found that I had but the sticks of butter in the oven when I got them out! I had a real mess on my hands. That's what happens when I try to do things when I'm tired. A friend of mine who has Alzheimer's once told me that her smoke detector was her kitchen timer! At least I caught it before the smoke detector went off -- I did think to turn the fan on to get rid of the smoke.

In England, I had one day where I could not remember where I had been the day before. I tried and tried and got so frustrated. We were doing so much, and eventually, with a little prodding from my husband I remembered parts of my day. I guess that is why it isn't a good idea for me to travel by myself.

More On England

This is my first attempt at putting photos in my blog so you will have to forgive my sideways
photo of the Canterbuy Cathedral -- I can't figure out how to change it! If my son is reading this, perhaps he can fix it!

The top photo is me in the small town of Sandwich -- it was a very quaint town, but you can see that the streets are very narrow. I didn't like going down them in the big double decker bus!

The second photo was taken in Whitstable, a town on the North Sea -- these little "beach houses" that are behind Pody, Rick and I are owned by people that have boats on the North Sea to house equipment, change their clothes and just to hang out in while they are at the North Sea. The amazing thing is that they cost $20,000 in American money -- and we don't think that includes the land!

The third phot is the Archbishop of Canterbury talking with Father Christmas. Father Christmas was much more popular than the Archbishop. See post below for more on that! Then the photo of the Canterbury Cathedral.

The last photo is of Pody and I with a volunteer in the Royal Navy Lifesaving Institute (I think I remembered the name correctly) -- anyway he had just finished a training mission in Whitstable -- they volunteer to do lifesaving tasks on the North Sea. He kindly let Pody wear his hat and pose for a photo with us.

I have more photos but since this is my first venture I'm going to see how this works out.

Britain

Well, we are back from a wonderful trip to England. We spent most of our time with our friends, Pody and Rick from Illinois. Pody is teaching in Canterbury this semester and what a lovely city. It reminded me of going to a Renaissance Festival. It was so beautiful. The Canterbury Cathedral is just a five minute walk from Pody's apartment and it is so amazing.

Pody got us tickets to a Christmas Carol concert at the Cathedral one night and it was a candlelight service with their boy's choir singing. You can just imagine how that was. And on Saturday morning, there was a Christmas parade and Father Christmas met the Archbishop of Canterbury at the end of the processional. Then there were carols and a small ceremony. Father Christmas garnered much more attention than the Archbishop. The amazing thing that Pody and I both noticed was that if this had been done in America there would have been security all over the place with barricades and crowd control. But not the case in Canterbury. The parade was not what we think of as a parade here -- it is hard to describe but soon I will post some photos on the blog. But the meeting of the Archbishop is a big deal and there was no one "protecting" him or security. And, Pody and I actually got to speak with him....which was even more amazing. Pody had greetings for him from the University of Illinois where the Archbiship had a god daughter that attended there. Someone casually said to Pody before she left Illinois, if you ever see the Archbishop send him our regards. Well, who ever thought that would happen but it did!

I guess the funny thing to me was that when I was in England over 30 years ago, I stayed with some friends in Manchester. They had a dinner to go to in London and they took me along and at the dinner was the Archbishop of Canterbury. I had no idea who he even was (I was only 18 and pretty ignorant about all that stuff) and I got to meet him and talk with him. I wasn't real impressed at the time because I really didn't know anything about the Church and all of that stuff! It is a different Archbishop now, but to think that my path crossed with the Archbishop's twice is something I would have never thought would happen.

Pody has been sick with a cold and I felt bad as she and her husband played host since she was sick, she should have been getting some rest.

I did o.k. -- got tired but we did a lot and that was to be expected. There is more to tell and I will at another post with promised pictures. I just wanted to give you a quick post and let you know that we have returned. I'm anxious to share our adventure with you.

Kris

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. It was very strange to have a Thanksgiving without our son. The day seemed a little empty. But, on Thanksgiving night we shared a wonderful meal with long time friends, who have become our extended family since moving to Athens twenty five years ago. I am thankful for that -- it just would have been nicer to have the kid here!

The next few days will be spent cleaning out the refrigerator and getting packed for England. We are looking forward to going and visiting with our friend Pody and her husband Rick. My sister-in-law is from London and although she has lived in Illinois for over 30 years, she was still able to give us some ideas to see some sights in London that would be decorated for Christmas. I worry that I will be a drag on my husband, but hopefully he has traveled enough with me that he will be used to it. I don't travel real well these days and when I get tired, I get very forgetful and confused. Hopefully, we will pace ourselves. When I was in California it was hard, but I did realize that I was there with my family and it didn't matter if I was confused or forgot something, because they were there with me to get me through it.

Ta Ta For Now

Thanksgiving

I hope that all of my friends out there know that I am truly grateful for their friendship, support and love they give me all year round -- not just at Thanksgiving.

A friend of mine's mother was in town from the Northeast for Thanksgiving. I met the mother several years ago when my friend invited me to have lunch with them. Since then, her mother and I have exchanged friendly emails and I usually catch up with her for lunch when she is in town. Yesterday, we spent the better part of the day together as her daughter was working. I enjoyed the day so much -- I think I enjoyed mostly feeling for a few hours that I was "part of the family". I miss that -- not having a large family, not having family close by. Thanks Mrs. K for making my day special....and thanks to your daughter for sharing you with me!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Not The Best of Days

It's hard for me to write about my bad days even though I know that many of you like to hear the good and bad. I had a really busy week last week and definitely over did it. I try to pace myself but I'm not very good at it sometimes. I was so tired after doing too much. On Saturday morning I tried to do a task of organizing things and getting them into piles -- pretty easy stuff. It took me three hours and then asking my husband for help, to do a job that should have taken at most about 20 minutes. It's so frustrating. I just need to not put myself in those situations -- or manage my time better. I keep saying to myself "if I can just get past Wednesday, or Thursday or whatever"....but sometimes it just doesn't seem to end. I have got to do better.

And, I get in a panic too easily. A panick attack came on over the weekend out of the blue and I hate that. I didn't leave the house all weekend. Not fair to my husband when he wants to do stuff -- but I don't know that I can do anything about it. The doctor said if they got too bad that he would give me some medicine, but I just don't want to take any more medicine.

We have a trip to England coming up in a few weeks. I am very very anxious to go but at the same time a little worried about the crowds and the confusion. I'm looking to my husband to take the lead and to help me -- he will if I ask him to, but he really needs to do it this time without me having to ask him to. He has got to take charge (something he is not used to) or he will probably have a pretty hysterical wife on his hands!

Learning New Things

Learning new things is difficult to someone that has Alzheimer's. Your brain just can't process things like it used to. Today I was doing something around the house and came across a task that I hadn't done in quite awhile. So, I decided to tackle it. I'm not going to say what is was because it was really quite trivial and it will make me sound stupid. But, for the life of me I couldn't remember how to do it and the directions just didn't make sense. Frustration is not even a word that can relate to how I felt. After a few tears about it I left it alone. I then came back to it with not much more success. How incompetent this can make you feel. It's hard for me to accept that I just can't do certain things anymore. Perhaps I'll try again later.

Halloween Memories

It's funny what you remember and what your kids remember about certain things. Years ago when I would take Alan trick or treating, he would come home with way too much candy. Because I didn't want him consuming all that candy at once, and because I didn't want him turning out short and fat like me, I decided to ration his candy. After an initial indulgence, I would let him pick out one piece of candy a day until it was all gone. (I know this sounds harsh). Years later Alan shared with me how he would lay awake at night trying to decide what piece of candy he wanted the next day. And, sometime Ralph or I would help ourselves to some of his candy, and when he went to get that piece of candy that he had yearned for it wasn't there -- wasn't I awful? Who knew it meant that much to him. He never said anything at the time. Now, this is what he is up to on Halloween -- http://www.stanford.edu/~bakowski/blog/index.html

I'm sorry Alan.