Thoughts From a Frazzled Mind

My dad's memory has been declining at a rapid pace.  He quite often struggles to remember people that he doesn't see frequently, even my mom,  though he was married to her for over 50 years.  He forgets how to do things, and he forgets events that happened even moments before.  In addition, sometimes he remembers things that didn't even happen.  For example, sometimes he will call me and tell me that he had just gotten home from Salt Lake but he can't remember how he got there or who he was with (but he didn't really go anywhere).  The very hardest thing is that he KNOWS that he can't remember and is extremely frustrated by it.  It is difficult to watch him struggle with trying to tell me something he feels is important when he realizes that he really can't remember what he is trying to tell me.  Sometimes he gets depressed and says things like it would be better if he could just lay down and die because he isn't worth anything anymore.  Fr...

One the hardest things for me about growing older is the fact that my eyes have betrayed me.  My eyes were perfect most of my life, but one day I woke up realizing that I was spending a lot of time with my arm tromboning  in order to try to bring small print into focus.  Each year my eyes get a little worse until reading without glass became impossible.  Now I notice that I am straining to read even with my glasses so I decided it was finally time to visit my friendly eye doctor.  When I arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my eye doctor was in fact my backyard neighbor!  His family recently moved into our neighborhood but I didn't recognize him as the eye doctor that I had seen a few years ago.  Whew - I'm sure glad that I have only said nice things about him!  He confirmed the need for stronger bifocals - Dang!  Soon I was trying on new eyeglass styles and picked out a new pair.  They are a little bolder than I usually ch...

This week started off with a killer headache - not very fun!  It actually woke me up from sleep and lasted most of the morning.  Fortunately my sisters still wanted me to hang out with them (okay, they pretty much forced me, but I'm still glad)  We decided to get breakfast at McDonalds and then we planned to visit the consignment shop, but it was closed.  We found this alley that was great for pictures, so of course we had to pause for a photo op. Since I wasn't feeling up to laughing and getting rowdy, we decided to just sit quietly and play some board games.  I was happy - I love playing games. Fortunately I started feeling better because I had signed up to clean the temple in the afternoon.  I have never done it before and really didn't know what to expect.  It was SUCH a great experience.  My job was to dust all of the baseboards and door jams on the first floor and also to sanitize every surface that hands could have touched on th...

Monday we had a great play day!  Tammy, Ash, Robin and I drove down to Ogden to do some shopping and girl bonding!  We had a ton of fun and found lots of great buys at Gordmans.  We stopped at Arby's for lunch, but I was disappointed to find that they no longer have their chicken salad sandwiches so I just got a regular Arby's sandwich.  My taste buds were very disappointed.  Later that evening Tammy, her daughter Kinsey, Ash and I headed to "The Old Barn" to see a play.  We stopped at JC's Country Diner and had dinner.  It was fabulous!  All but Kinsey got omelettes that were so tasty that we ate until our tummies felt like they would burst! I had never been to the Old Barn theater before but had heard good things about it.  The show we saw was "You Can't Take it With You".  It must have been an off night because there was only about 20 people in the audience.  The play was okay, but I'm not used to staying up very late and...

I think that I really like having Mondays off.  This week Tammy and I hung out all day together.  I really miss the times when every Thursday was “scrapbook with Tammy time” (although she just watched and visited most of the time).   I had Thursdays off most of the time I was working for Dr. Dibble.  Thursdays were great – there was “Opera Thursday” where I broke out in song without embarrassment or harassment whenever I felt the need to do so.  Thursday were the days when I would schedule lunch dates with friends and family.  For the next several weeks I have Mondays off because I am doing clinicals on Saturdays.  It is fun having a day off in the middle of the week – but I’m not sure that I like giving up my Saturday to get it.  Tammy and I spent some time visiting my dad, I think he loved her company, we then went out to Robin’s house and visited for a while.  Of course, we then had to eat, so we had lunch at Old Grist Mill. ...

Whew!  What a whirlwind week!  It was fun, exciting, entertaining, horrifying, and thought provoking all mixed up together! The week started with a trip to St.George to see three plays at Tuacahn with Kim's sister, Jody, and her daughters, Mickel and Kristiann. Luckily I woke Monday morning with no stomach issues and just a little residual tired and weakness.  I made the entire car ride to St. George without incident - well at least no sickness incident.  I realized when we had traveled about 40 miles that I had forgotten my cell phone.  I seriously contemplated just leaving it and being phone-free for the trip, but decided that I couldn't make it, so we turned around and picked it up.  Great start, right? Actually the car trip was quite pleasant.  We put old musicals in the DVD and Jody and Mickel listened from the front seat while Kristiann and I watched in the back seat.  We watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, My Fair Lady, and ...