GOOFY DAY

 Madison, Al.

We had decent weather today most of the time. However it stayed right below freezing all day so the OFM stayed inside as much as possible. During my hall walking half hour of aerobic exercise it went from cold and gloomy to bright sun nd then light snow falling for about an hour. The next thing I knew it was over cast with a cold breeze. Now it is hazy, cold, light breeze and not worth a flip to be outside.  The good news is that in about 12 days we should start to warm up slightly so we can get above freezing in the daytime for a change. This is the first time I have spent much winter here in my life so it is a new happening for me.

I got to finish a new coloring of some flowers that took forever it seemed to get the color details correct. But it was an excellent learning experience for me. 

And yesterday around noon we all got a letter from the owners, manager, and operators of this assisted living I am at.  The letter explained a big change coming.  The owners are changing the company that actually operates the business soon. The company that runs the actual doing of the business "hands on wise " is to continue. I do not know exactly know where each responsibility starts and stops but the day to day operations are not expected to change any significant amount.  Any way we are supposed to be unaffected in the day to day part of the business. The owners have been fairly straight forward in the past so the details should be ok for us patients involved here. My guess is somebody is retiring.

And that is all the excitement here for the day.

A LITTLE HECTIC TODAY

 MADISON, AL.

Things got a little hectic today as a new internet revision was completed for the building I live in.  Sure enough they did not get the new password to me so I was without internet until a little while ago. The installer was still here and gladly fixed me up with the new password for getting on the internet.  As you can see it worked well. Other than that it was just a plain day of living, visiting and eating. Nothing special went on and nothing special is happening until late next week. Looks like a good week for piddling around. Have fun folks.

INVENTORY OF CLOTHING

 MADISON AL.

Today was laundry day so early this morning I got my dirty clothing into the hamper and ready for pickup early.  By the time I finished breakfast the housekeeping lady had the laundry in their machines getting all wet. Laundry is included in our rent.  A couple of hours later she delivered the laundry to my door in the basket folded for storage. But today was the day I had chosen to inventory and logically consider my  clothing inventory.  ABOUT an hour later I had EVERYTHING accounted for and put away.  It was nice to know for sure I had enough clothing and different types to meet weather challenges ahead.  To my surprise I did not have any changes to make in the inventory now that I am not traveling any more. 

Another new to me event happened. A fellow who was very nice to the newbie Barney who had just moved into this facility eight months ago was moved to a new place for him. He is 97 and now needed 24/7 care and  attention and this place is not set up for that intensive amount of care.  I was at the door when he was wheeled out to wave goodbye and give him a thumbs up.  We sure hope it goes well for him. He is a nice fellow.

My mental therapy  consists of things to cause heavy mental thought in the form of games etc. to fight the Dementia.  Well today it was a session of building a dohicky with leggos.  I had never handled Leggos before so it was very interesting.  The worst part was the tiny little pieces in the set we used. Trifocal glasses are definitely a difficulty but stiff old fingers are as bad too.  Since I had never handled Leggos before it was an interesting 45 minutes of therapy with a lot of dropped pieces. Good grief they were small and light so sometimes I could not even feel the pieces in my hand even though I could see them there in my fingers. This will take some getting used to.  

Thanks for reading and good luck with everything.

JUST MORE COLD AND COLORING

 MADISON, AL.

Not much special today. I had a good nights sleep last night. It was definitely a cold temp this morning outside. So I stayed inside all day just keeping warm and doing coloring or studying how to do special types of coloring. The cooking staff here does a good job of keeping us well fed which is very nice. This excessively cold weather is due to stick around for another week at least so I should be pretty good at coloring by the time it warms up around here. Nothing else special so just keep warm and well fed. We are.  Good night.

MORE FREEZING WEATHER

 Madison, Ala.

It looks like more of the same cold weather for the next week at least with freezing every night and near freezing during the day. Not much to do outside today. We had small flake snow flurries for about two hours in the morning but when the clouds went away and the sun hit the snow it melted away in an hour or so.  So from lunch on it was a nice looking day but right above freezing. The whole next week is hard freeze each night with a bit of thawing during the day. Guess I got to sit back and enjoy staying inside and going to brain therapy. At least I am decently fed, warm and dry.  Have fun folks, OFM

LONG FREEZE

 MADISON, ALABAMA

The big event here is the temperature is supposed to be below freezing tonight and stay there for over 24 hours. Then it will get barely above freezing in the day time for several days. Gonna be cold here for a while. I sure hope the heating system holds out for the building.  We are dripping water from the faucets at night already to keep the pipes from freezing and breaking. That is about the closest thing we have to news today so sit back and relax. Have fun somewhere and good night.

ORGANIZING THE COMPUTER DESK

 Madison, Al.

It was a good day of reorganizing my desk of operations.  Several pages of loose paper floating around were put out in the trash since they were not needed anymore. Then we got busy seeing where we were in organizing things. While we were at it, it turned out to be time to rework my desk since I would not be in an RV again.  We reinstalled a shelf in a side storage bin and put some things that occasionally we   need into that space. then a general rearrangement to make things a little easier now. It was time well spent since we also got some no longer needed stuff out of the area into the trash bin outside.

Next big deal was a very good half hour of lightly aerobic inside walking in the halls. It was a little over thirty minutes of brisk walking that felt really good. That walk is a daily thing for me. On top of that I put the 7 pound hand weights in my hands and did a nice gentle workout from top to bottom with their help.

Then the rest of the day I culled coloring books I have accumulated in the last year. Each one was carefully gone through and each page was given a look and if I thought it was not likely to get used in any fashion , it was torn out and into the trash can.  That brought the stack down to about 125 possible art efforts in front of me. Now we will see what I can do with pile of work ahead.

On top of that I got out my four sets of colored pencils and  tried them all out in an effort to simplify my choices to make time I try to color. I chose to stick with wax based colored pencils and get rid of the oil based colored pencils.  Betty R from across the hall from me was glad to get them since she uses that exact brand of pencils.

Just in case that was not enough to do, I tackled a significant cold air leak in a window that was letting in too much cold weather in these days.  The trouble turned to be a round foam gasket that had failed and there was a reasonable piece of foam ready to be cut to fit properly and installed. So I did it and did not bother the maintenance man who is over loaded right now with the bad cold wet weather stuff .  So now I have a much easier room to heat in these below freezing temperatures out side.

All in all it was a nice day of just the right amount of stuff needing to be done to avoid boredom. And now it is blog time. Great day for the OFM.

THE Dummy Lives Here

 Madison, Al.

It does not take much to bamboozle the OFM.  I reached for my door keys on the way back from the dumpster trip and found an empty spot where I normally keep them on my belt.  OK in back to the nurses station to get one of them to open my room door so I can find out where I put them. Thirty minutes later of searching this 350 square foot apartment the key and wrist chain were found hanging on the doorknob of the bathroom room against the wall. OK so next was another walk to the nurses station to thank the nurse for opening the door earlier. She was nice and polite about my stupidity.

Other than that 30 minute search, the day was mostly a so what except for when I touched base with old friends back in Texas and had a nice phone visit. So folks take it easy and enjoy our cool weather while you can. Good night .    

HOW LONG

MADISON,  AL.

Well I got to messing with the SSA site and got busy seeing how long I should have to live as a minimum.  With the age now being 79  and the disease being Vascular Dementia it looks like I have a bit of a chance to live to 88.9 years old. That is not very long so I better get busy cause I have a lot of living to do yet. Keep in mind I was on the road as a full time RVer for seventeen years already. That translates into a huge pile of things I know about now that I still have to do.

Nothing else exciting went on today in this facility. The facility is actually well run most of the time. Cleanliness is a priority and I really appreciate that asset. The day went along easily in spite of nothing special was happening. It warmed up just barely warm enough that the OFM actually got to get outside to do his walking exercise today. I much prefer to walk out side than make loops of the hallways inside. But that was the limit of the excitement for today. Have fun.

GOOD THERAPY SESSION and COLORED PENCIL REVIEW

MADISON, AL. 

Today was a good mental therapy session. After a bit of help getting my understanding of the Sudoku rules straightened out I whipped right on through two sets of that game in decent time.  It was a lot less difficult when the real rules were known. So I labed it s good day because it is now a fun game to me.

I finished the valuation of the four colored pencil sets I have been messing with.  After careful analysis of the similar sets of colored pencils I came to the conclusion that any of the sets exceeded my abilities.  The sets had considerably different price tags.  My coloring with each of them over the course of several colorings led me to believe that any of the sets would be just fine for most non-professional art efforts. One of the sets was a watercolor pencil set that did very well as dry or wet coloring.  This does not mean they were identical in performance.  As usual each had a quirk or two to learn but they all did just fine for me. The water color pencils and one set of colored pencils were the Kalour brand. another set of colored pencils was Kird-Barken brand and the  last set and considerably more expensive brand was Prismacolor. I was unable to tell any of the coloring ability between them for an amateur like me.

I very much liked the way each brand handled even though each brand had style of use to be learned . Like proper pressure on the point of the lead etc.  Purchases were all made through Amazon.

I hope that helps some of you with any art efforts you may be doing.

We have a major freeze scheduled starting Friday and lasting a few days so I likely be staying inside until that weather event is over. 

Have fun indoors. 

EASY DAY OF ART EFFORT

MADISON, Al.

Almost the whole day was spent indoors working on art things of one sort or the other. The weather is looking like a week of bitter cold and wetness is in our immediate future. So I will be staying inside a lot for sure.  As I type this we have one day next week where we will not get up to above freezing for about two and a half days. I plan on staying out of that sort of weather. Every one be careful in this messy weather. OFM

EVEN LESS THAN YESTERDAY

 MADISON, AL.

Even less happened today than yesterday. I got a brain recovery session in at therapy that went very well for a change. This therapy just slows down my brain failure rate not cure anything. The best I can tell continuing the therapy often could add me another three or four years to live and still be able to function decently. It is worth the bother since it is usually just playing fun brain games anyway.  Chess. Sudoku or things like that. That is about all the excitement for the day. I hope you folks had some fun too.  Good Night.

NOT MUCH

Madison, Al.

Mostly a piddle around day.  Did my homework for the weekend for my brain repair class. Then it was piddle here and there all day  while waiting for an Amazon package that finally got here about 7pm. At least the whole order made it in decent shape.

I did manage to color a nice 5 x 7 size picture of a lady drawing while sitting on a log outside that came out nice. But this brings us to the end of a decent day and the start of a good nights sleep. So Good night Folks.

NEW ADULT COLORING BOOKS

 Today was the start of a four days of Amazon stuff arriving. For the next four days I have things arriving from Amazon that are little things that make life nicer. Not being able to drive safely makes getting a quick trip to Walmart or anywhere impossible. s Amazon takes the place of running to a local store for anything.  Today two new adult coloring books came in that are going to keep me busy for a few months. Both are full of landscapes of different sorts but are much more detailed than one for kids to color. I will have things to color for a couple of months now.

Today I have been doing my Dementia home work by trying to work out Sadako  puzzles. Yet I still have no idea how to manage them in any manner. But working on them is supposed to noticeably improve my brain. 

That is it for the big excitement of the day so get busy and have some fun for me. Goodnight.

GOOD PLAYING

Madison, Al.

Here it is 0857 Friday night and finally I have something good to write about. Tonight was my grandson's honor band performance.  He plays trombone in the band. They gave their final performance tonight to a large crowd and it was excellent music for all the total performance. I was excessively proud of their performance. That tops out the day very well. YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. 

EXAMPLES OF BRAIN REPAIR GAMES

 MADISON, ALABAMA

Ok folks, as requested, here is the  brain games I played in therapy today. The first one was an eight step word game where you started with one word and followed a clue about changing a letter in the word to form a new word. Then repeated that several times until you got to the end of the clues  with a final new word. It was easy for me to do but my medical lead says that many folks have trouble with it.

Onn to the second game for the day. It was a sudoku puzzle.  I have never enjoyed them and never really got one figured out in my life. Today was as usual 20 minutes of work with no success. And the session was over.  I got to take the sudoku puzzle back to my room to work on it this weekend. Little chance I will figure it out but I will give it a shot. It is the attempting to do it that causes someone to build brain abilities lost due to the dementia  disease whether they win or lose the game. So I will give it a good try this weekend. Another fun  game is s box of different colored thin wood shapes like circles, triangles and other weird shapes are put on a table in front of me.   Then a colored picture of the shapes making a scene like a house and garage is put on the table and I get to arrange the shapes to be just like the scene of the house and garage. Sometimes the pieces are all the same color or other times they are different colors. but you still match a scene  given to you.  There are several more "do it" types of stuff that challenge your ability to follow instructions carefully. 

I do have to say that the different games can be a real challenge on my rough days and some times on a good day it is fun and easy. Each session is supposed to be about 45 minutes of patient working time.

I hope that gives you an idea of the kind of games we play in the brain rebuilding part of the treatments.

Now it is time to get busy having fun. Thank you for reading my babbling.

WHAT NEXT.

 Madison, Alabama

Finished a bit of mental therapy this afternoon and learned what my level of mental ability is. I have recovered to the likely highest level of brain ability I will get and from here on will need to keep on with the brain exercises to minimize the brain deterioration for the rest of my life. Notice I said minimize brain decline.  The decline will continue but we can slow it down but not stop it much less get better. Well my reading about dementia had me prepared for this day as much as possible.  My brain function is definitely less than it was two years ago. So now all the brain work will only be for helping slow down the continuing deterioration. I knew this point was coming up soon and here it is.  So folks now I have a valid reason to sound like a real dummy now. So watch out this ride could get a lot wilder now. Go have fun, life is very short. OFM

QUESTIONS FINISHED

 MADISON ALABAMA

I looked up on the internet and got good news about the weather around here. The normal average date that the weather starts warming up in this area is February 1. I will be ready for it to get on moving upward myself. I used to like a hard freeze or two to knock down the mosquito population down on the Texas coast marshes. But WAY up north like Madison is, mosquitoes are not much of a trouble usually. So let us just get right on into warm weather again.

As far as I can recall I have answered all the questions on my living situation. If someone wants more information just drop the question on me in the blog and I will give you my best guess to the truth as I see it.

That is about all the excitement for today. The latest excitement is Amazon finally delivered the last dribble of stuff ordered before Christmas. It was just ordinary stuff for living and not time critical but I still like to be clear of waiting for stuff later than it was supposed to be here.   Have fun folks.

Cindy question answered

 Madison Alabama

Cindy you asked about activities  for inmates to participate in.  I do not know how many a month we average so I went to the Big Room as they call it where they post a huge monthly calendar of things to do if you want to participate.  For January there is only 80 events this month. Most months have a few more. Out of that 80 events 4 are former professional entertainers that are paid to preform here. They put on an hour show in the afternoon after lunch normally. Yes they are all very good and fun to attend, Three times a week there is a free bingo game hour with winners getting small packages of candy. Margaret sees to it the game is fun. The physical and mental therapy clinic puts on special free events about 3 -5 times a week that are well attended. In between that many church groups stop by to sing and make a pitch to come to their church.  Several other activity groups happen.  I attempted to start a group for learning simple art drawing and coloring. It failed  as the folks just wanted to do coloring as they visit with each other. Several other groups meet weekly or monthly as they choose .  Generally speaking , Anybody can get an approved event going if they want to. All of this is in addition to things like Christmas, Halloween etc parties. The business manager is frequently asking folks what they want to have happening. She helped me get the first coloring teaching class to happen.  On top of all this there is outdoor events when winter is not in charge of the weather. So yep a few things happen once in a while.

Barb in Florida Question

 Madison, Alabama

OK Barb here is my least stupid answer to the difference in how my type of migraine and a dementia start up behave.

The migraine, mine are known as classic migraine. I  start not feeling fine about a minute before I start going blind. Then one or both eyes are blind for a few minutes and then the screaming migraine head ache starts.

For the dementia I am feeling fine and suddenly my balance is bad, knowing where or what is gong on around me may cease to happen.  Then in a few minutes later I figure out I feel bad and feel very run down and and somewhat disoriented for 15  to thirty minutes. After that I can function at a low low level of ability for an hour or so. Then my ability to talk and make sense slowly comes back over the next half hour or so. Full recovery takes a few hours usually so far and then I am weak for a day or so. 

I will tell more about other parts of Dementia tomorrow.

Now for today. I was able to start and complete two new colorings today and they were fun. I am hoping my son can get over here to get me able to put pictures into the blog again pretty soon.

The colorings today came out pretty well and were lots of fun to work out and do. They took about four hours each. When I do new colorings, they get hung on the outside of my room door for a while to let folks that are interested to see them.

That is it for tonight. I will attempt to answer more questions tomorrow after I figure out the answers. Good night everyone,