Blue, Charlotte's advise is right on. Charlotte, you never cease to amaze me. You are always looking for that rainbow after the storm. Good luck Blue with your new lifestyle, and lots of luck to you, Charlotte with your surgery next week.
Charlotte, Sorry I am so far behind on the posts here, I missed yours. I am sending healing thoughts and many prayers to you. You will be fine. Stay strong and know we are thinking of you!!!!
Charlotte, Sending best wishes that all goes well. You ARE an amazing woman with such strength, kindness and wisdom. We are all thinking of you. Kindest regards
Charlotte, sending you good wishes for your surgery. I so enjoy reading your posts. Your comments in another discussion today were right on, when you let your friend know what you have to do every day.
The landscapers came this week to do the spring clean up, and to remove about a dozen dead trees (some more than 60 feet tall). They did a wonderful job, and the gardens look so lovely now. Since I can't mow the lawn until I am fully recovered, I have hired them to come every two weeks to keep the lawn mowed and the grass trimmed around the flower beds. The surgeon is allowing me to do "light" gardening, so I can look after the flower beds myself. I really can't afford to have the landscapers in to do the gardening for me, but I really don't have any choice.
Has anyone heard how Charlotte did with her surgery?
I am doing fine. Pain not bad even when I let the drugs wear off. I am starting to eat more which means more bloating. Can't wait until I get system working again.
Charlotte, I am happy to hear that you are starting to recover.
Grendelsma22 - I am mending fairly quickly (not quickly enough for me). But in the process of healing I am learning that I can't do everything I used to do, and maybe its time I stopped trying to, even after I am fully recovered! I guess that is a positive I can take away from all of this! :-)
So it's the end of May and I'm up at 5:50am. I leave the windows all open most of May and June. Cats love it and hang out on the bureau I put into the window. I can hear a gaggle of geese flying by first from one side of the house and then from the other as they passed over us. I hear the train whistle from far away. My cats are sleeping on the small carpet in the small hallway because from there you can hear everything in quadraphonic through the open four windows. They get up stretching seeing I'm getting up. My feet hit the hardwood I discovered underneath the old carpets where one third of my bedroom is still carpeted but two thirds are gleaming. My world my timetable.
I make a strong pot of coffee and my mind starts drifting looking out my window. I can sense my way down to Niagara and Buffalo across the river and wonder if today I might go to Welland and start the waitress thing I wrote about months ago. I could visit my sister down at Turkey Point on Lake Erie. They have a trailer and a boat. Or I could drive to Grand Bend on Lake Huron which is a long white sand beach and would be teaming with young people and kids playing. It's a summer town and has some good icecream stores.
[Mental note to self. Ice cream on the to do list. Over]
Or I could drive up to Penetang on Georgian Bay. It's where we kept our sailboat for almost 20 years.
It's not that I'm going to do any of those things. It's that I remember the images of all the places and know my choices are growing - not shrinking. I know I'm going somewhere today because I can feel it.
So I end up driving to New Hamburg and note the icecream parlour in Baden. This is mennonite country and their horses and buggies and fresh pickled beets and summer sausage and hand made furniture are everywhere. I'm heading to a mennonite store in Shakespeare, Ontario. They sell pies. I bought a steak and kidney pie, a tortierre? pie, and a steak and mushroom pie, and a blueberry pie, and of a jar of beets.
It's like the old days. Looking around at everything not in a hurry and watching the redwinged blackbirds zipping around in the fields by the creeks that meander through the country. I stopped in the icecream store in Baden and she did her own baking too. There were six little girls with four mothers ahead of me. So I went to the baking area and decided what I wanted. It was an old store with creaking hardwood that was probably 150 years old. I got some horns filled with fresh cream, a couple of slices of banana bread, and two home made cinnamon buns. And a double scoop turtles fudge mocha.
Let's face it. Life is a pile of doo-doo and we just have to suffer through it as best we can.
A beautiful day to end May.I watched the bluebirds from my dining window.They must have wonderful sight.They swoop down from the tree branch and get a bug 50 - 60 feet away,back up to the branch and soon swoop again.I have one more week recuperating from my surgery earlier ths month,I will be so glad to get back to normal living.May everyone have a Happy June.We are married 60yrs. June 16.
A gorgeous day here in Maine. This morning the van at this retirement home took several of us to a local (wealthy) resident who has a beautiful garden on Somes Sound that was open to the public today. Then I visited my wife and took her for a walk to enjoy the weather. All in all, a very satisfying day.
Wolf, reading your post brought back so many wonderful memories - camping with my parents at Turkey Point, or Grand Bend or Georgian Bay. But the best memory came from your mention of Shakespeare. I haven't thought about that little town in years. Many years ago, my FIL lived in Clinton, and we used to drive through Shakespeare to get there. There was a cheese factory outlet store in Shakespeare, and it was a must stop on the way, as their old cheddar cheese was out of this world. I think they also sold ice cream. Is the cheese factory still there?
I don't know a cheese factory there bqd. I do know the Oak Grove Cheese Factory has exactly that in New Hamburg which is the next town over. I'm feeling stuffed today. The pie was 1kg which is 2.2lbs. I ate it. I left most of the crust. I do have to watch my girlish figure. Besides I still have two pies in the freezer.
Today I have zero to do. I can still backlash and it's tricky business because I really am going out and enjoying myself while my wife is dying. Comments with Nikki over a year ago made me sensitive to the realization that this is also one of the veils. I see it as one of the central imperatives.
It became clear years ago that the landscape of an Alzheimer's survivor is many different storms pulling in many different directions and that some of them pull at the opposite end of each other. It's part of what I mean when I say we end up where we believe. Is it alright for me to dance while she dies?
It must be expressed sharp like that. Fuzzy language is where deceit hides. If I feel deep inside that it's wrong to try and be happy while I'm already on my own, I can talk about it until I'm blue in the face but I won't do anything because I'm caught between two opposing beliefs. The one I say and the one that prevents me. If I do go and dance do I still feel sad? Of course. I didn't become a robot. But I am authorized to meet another woman and pursue a relationship. I gave myself that by answering all the questions until the judge and the jury were satisfied (all me) and then I dredge through the reactions I have to see over time what is real in what I believe and what still needs time because I'm not sure.
I can do anything I want. Anything within my means and capability. That's my authorization I gave myself last year. Means nothing. The word authorize is another fuzzy blur. The obvious shouldn't be likewise. I'm at the point where I'm actually going somewhere and doing something and am engaged in that feeling ok. That is a long way from any relationship. And just to be clear I am already in a relationship. It used to be my wife and I and now it's me holding my hand trying to be more normal. I'm busy over here taking my own healing seriously.
Lunch invitation still stands. It's also fine if that doesn't work in your plans.
Wolf, it must have been New Hamburg. Its been 35 years since my FIL lived in Clinton, so I guess my memory is a little rusty!
Your backlash is natural, although unwelcome. I think you have come a long way in the last year.
I'll let you know about lunch or dinner when we get closer to the end of June - I am going to call the respite home tomorrow to confirm my DH's stay - it gives me plenty of time to rectify things if something isn't right with his reservation!