Well, a lot has changed since my last post. And once again, the nature of my blog will be changing. Dad went into an assisted living center 22 Jul 2020. He passed away 26 Nov 2020. He did really well at first, but as at the house with me, they had a hard time ensuring…
Hardest Decision – Changing Times
What’s the hardest decision you ever made? Even after making what you thought was the hardest decision in your life, have you found another, harder decision has found its way into your life? That’s the case for me. For three years now dad has lived in a rehab facility, been moved across country to live…
Innermost Thoughts… They Can Hurt
Make no mistake about it, caring for a parent in the latter years of his or her life can be a near impossible task. And that’s even if your parent is an easy-going person with whom getting along is super easy. Dad is not super easy-going and… well he is far from easy to get…
Google…
Recognizing dad’s diminishing abilities to maneuver well around the house and manipulate things with his hands, I added a network of Google Home mini speakers and a Google Hub to the house and began trying to train him to ask Google for certain things. There is a device in each room and bathroom in the…
Dry-erase Magic
So this has begun. Probably should have over a year ago. Dry-erase markers and mirrors are a match made for caring for adult parents… especially in the bathroom! Things are pretty fluid (no pun originally intended, but I’ll work with it!) in the bathroom with aging parents. So a dry-erase marker allows you to make,…
“Just sit there until you finish…”
You know how people always told you that as people age they return to childhood behavior? Well, I never doubted it, but I also never realized how far reaching this reality of aging was until I moved my dad in with me. From reading (EVERY) random sign we pass on the road, to not picking…
Activities and Hobbies
We all recognize that as we grow older, our abilities to do certain things become minimized. I find that my father, for the most part, only enjoyed things that required a high level of physical strength and coordination (mowing the lawn, working in the yard, sailing, building small intricate wood projects, etc.) and now finds…
Water. Water, water, water. Water!
File this under, “Things You Learn Caring for An Aging Parent”! I remember my dad drinking coffee (lots of coffee). Drinking iced tea with meals. Having an occasional, small glass of juice with breakfast meals. Drinking an occasional beer or bourbon. But, looking back, what I now realize is I never, remember him ever drinking…
Beginning Again… Again…
Here we go again. They say all things become new… so this is another “new” startup for my craigkendall.com blog. The last post, on the last blog was in 2013. To say a lot has happened in six years would be more than an understatement. Rather than try to catch up in one post, I’m…