Six Tips for Surviving the Holiday Season When a Loved One Has Dementia Normally, Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday, a time our family gathered together at my Kansas City home. But that November, my stomach clenched at the thought of our traditional Thursday evening meal. My mother had Alzheimer’s and the holiday would be different. I felt alone but of course I wasn’t: there were 15 million family/friend caregivers helping the five million Americans who have dementia. I’d been through my initial storm of denial and grief. I felt I’d been coping we ...continued...

My life is consumed with the care and feeding of an older generation. It is my love and my passion. Only recently did it hit me how great the loss will be when the “Silent” generation is gone and the “Boomers” take on the role of the Old and Wise. I wonder if my generation will be able to carry on, to follow in the foot steps of a generation that blindly followed their leaders into war for love of their great country, a generation that produced ideas like the North Platte Nebraska Canteen. The Canteen was a stop ...continued...

This question was often asked of me while I attempted to get my first “serious” job. It was a difficult, philosophical question to answer. Looking back on those times, I wonder if the enquirer had asked it because he could not remember why he himself had chosen to become an accountant. Nearing retirement, the job interviewer hoped that this young, fresh-faced interviewee might retrospectively give meaning and justification to the previous thirty years of his working life. Unfortunately, there was no blinding flash of wisdom from the mouth of this babe accountant. Shortly after I ...continued...

Our story Our family is a small and new family, whom has been thru a lot. Mother: Kelly, Son: Tony, and Father: Val. Family's Past history. Kelly and Val meet years ago. And moved onto a Tiny boat together 50sq ft trimaran. As time went on they lived on a number of small boats trying to find something that fit them. Presented with a job offer and good life in HI they moved onto a 75' yatch, that was well equipped for the trip to HI. Then Kelly got pregnant, when she was about 6 months along during the move, About 150 miles out to sea the frame of the boat started to brake due to poor ...continued...

On a beutiful sunny day in March 1978, my husband, Charlie Gordon, left the RAF and we returned with two young daughters to his home town on the Northumberland coast, dominated by a large caravan site, local people so nice and friendly. The sun would soon go behind the gather storm clouds &nb ...continued...

The happiest times were always out at my great grannies . ...continued...

Jordan Dixon Chapter 1 ...continued...

I have been a certified nursing assistant (CNA) for the past 6 years. I have many responsibilities as a CNA regarding all patient’s physical, emotional, and mental well-being. I am expected to handle culture and religion issues with respect, kindness, and understanding. I have been in situations where my clients believes in a different religion then I do, and they contact my boss to tell them that that they don’t want me to be there caregiver anymore due to differences in religion. As a CNA I recognize and believe that spiritual beliefs are different, in which r ...continued...

Another thing I used to do quite often was to get a can of beans, some crackers and hike out to Julien Dubuque's grave. When there was a slow moving freight train going by, we would hop on and get off at Catfish Creek or town, depending which way we were going. I don't recall Mary ever doing this, but she could have. At Catfish, there is a small cave where we would warm up our beans and with the crackers have our lunch. We would always go up the path alongside the cliff to the grave. Now they have it blocked off because it is so dangerous which is OK a ...continued...

I always felt intrigued by her. She had a bad reputation, and I knew the reason why she got kicked out of the school I went to. She was friends with a group of people I used to hang out with, but that was just about it. We never had a conversation or anything, and I thought she didn't like me at all. She always gave me weird looks and such. We were 16 when we had our first conversation. That day, we connected. I never thought we would ever have a conversation, so I was really surprised about that. The few bad things I knew abou ...continued...

Buying Stuff Presented @ a KC Writers Group Reader Function I enrolled in a comedy writing class at UMKC in Kansas City a couple of years ago and this is a version of my script that was broadcast on a local radio station. Writing comedy is a difficult venue. I say that in case you don’t think what have composed is funny. Today I’m going to tal ...continued...

The catfish in my photo weighed over (100) pounds and was at least 40 years old. (I didn¹t catch it but I know who did and they let me borrow the big fish for this picture.) When you¹re having a bad day think of this big Blue Cat¹s degree of dullness. Day after day searching for food hoping not to find a hook attached, only able to see an inch or so in front of your face and about all to look forward too would be periodic mating. I¹m not even sure how much fun that would be considering you couldn¹t see the stranger you¹re hooking up with and ...continued...

Today we hit 89 degrees, no, not the temperature but 89 degrees north. We are now a little less than one degree away from the North Pole. We have traveled over 60 miles north from our start point. Keep in mind, this does not include any traveling we did moving every other direction to get around open leads, ice boulder fields, or pressure ridges, needless to say we have accomplished alot in the past 6 days (or was it 7 days? Hard to keep track). We are expecting one resupply to get us more fuel and food for the dogs, but we have a great team and everyone is motivated to push hard and get to ...continued...

In 1993, I thought of the next 5 years as being light years away. The only things I were planning was when and where I would meet for happy hour on Friday and what girl could I could meet while I was there. In 1998, that is exactly what I had become: happy hour and non committed relationships. I had received exactly what I had thought about over the previous 5 years. Nothing more. Nothing less. Thoughts Whatever you believe our creator to be, it has given to us the undeniable ability to choose our thoug ...continued...

Living so close to our school had a couple of advantages: I could go home for my lunch and in the evenings Tommy and l would squeeze through the railings and have a kick about in the playground. One evening we climbed onto the toilet roof to look for balls. I was busy trying to dislodge a tennis ball from the gutter when I heard loud knocking coming from the main building, I glanced over and saw the stern face of our headmistress, ...continued...