Salted Peanuts

The elderly man at the check out stand 
has in his cart a bag of  peanuts in the shell.  
That is all.  
Will this be dinner, or is he feeding the squirrels?

Salted Peanuts

small rain at hollyhockjunction

Lipsticks: mOOwa!

  "Hey,  that baby smiled at me!" speaks a shopper catching a glimpse of four generations of women flitting about in front of the department store mirrors, and trying on lipstick at Nordstrom's. 
   Baby Ciara, in the stroller, with rosy cheeks, is smiling as she wears Christmas red kisses on her forehead - three different shades  planted there by mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. mOOwa!

Twelve days of Christmas:  

On the list,  send  Grandma her favorite brand of lipstick in Christmas red.

small rain at hollyhockjunction.blogspot.com          

Christmas Cookies to decorate

Martha is Methodical. It's part of her dementia, and it's also part of  her nature.  She used to be a school teacher, and she likes things in their place.

Good therapy is to help her clean the kitchen counters, then stir up and roll out a batch of Christmas sugar cookies.

She remembers the "how to" of  cracking the  eggs, and measuring ingredients, and dusting the rolling pin.  And when it comes to  frosting the cookies and decorating,  one by one,  she puts the snowflake sprinkles into place.

Twelve days of Christmas:  Add to the list- Go visit Grandma and frost cookies.

Small rain at hollyhockjunction   
     
  

In the midst of family roots.

     Alice Marie  died in December, during the  week of the cold moon.  Alice was 91. Her grandfather came from Norway and homesteaded the land, the home place  where she had lived most of her life, even after she married.  
 She and my father  grew up together on adjacent farms separated only by a small creek. Their fathers were brothers.   She and my father,  and siblings, and neighbors, all walked to country school together just a mile down the road.   Most of them grew up and stayed in the same area.   

     Alice was the family historian, and if there was  anything I wanted to know of  my family roots,  I could have  asked Alice Marie. That is, up until a week or so ago…I’m sorry I missed the opportunity.  

   

Daily, the bakery

Ginny buys an onion bagel or a blueberry banana muffin most every day at the bread store bakery in her neighborhood.  She enjoys the walk down town to pick  up her mail and the newspaper. She also gets fresh air and exercise.   
But especially she likes her stop at the bakery.  The young person working behind the counter there greets her with a smile, and is helpful and kind in a most cheerful way.  Ginny has someone nice to talk to today.

Deuteronomy 32:2  "As the small rain upon the tender herb..."  small rain at hollyhockjunction.blogspot.com

Lining up mittens.

Frost on the windows. 

   I have new warmy mittens handmade by a good friend. She  makes them using repurrposed wool sweaters. 

There are several children's stories and rhymes about lost mittens.  "Three little kittens..." 

Vintage story book from 1960
by MERRIL COMPANY PUBLISHERS

THERE are story books about mittens for sale on Ebay for interactive story telling.    
Here are the names of some of them: 
 The Mitten.  M is for Mitten, Oatmeal Mittens, Missing Mittens, Noah's Mittens, The Mitten Tree,  One Mitten Lewis,  The Missing Mitten Mystery,  Big Mitten, A Mountain of Mittens,  Ice Harbor Mittens, My Red Mittens.

ACTIVITY FOR ALL AGES:  Make felt or paper mittens and decorate. Hang on a door.  Or make a paper card and write your mitten story in it.  (Trace around your own hand.  Hold your four fingers together and shape around hand and thumb.)
  

Deuteronomy 32:2 

A small rain at HollyhockJunction

And a smile from XYZinnia     

Ripped Paper: Make an owl.

November Greetings!

                                                                             

     Rita in a skilled facility, made an  owl card and wrote her own verse, and smiled,       "It's good to have purpose," she said.   

She asked to be  wheeled down the hall and into another room where sat Gordon, an amputee resident in a wheel chair.  Rita tenderly handed him the card, and he, the retired pastor wept, and they touched each others hands.  It   brightened the day  for both of them.

  

  Trace the owl outline  below on a square of construction paper, or  on repurposed pulp paper. (Use medium weight paper that tears easily.)   

  Hold the square of paper between finger and thumb and cut it tear around the lines carefully.      Tear varied shapes for  the wings, eyes, beak, legs, tree limb, and leaf. 

Owl outline

Arrange and glue the paper pieces onto paper.

This is a  good project for adult day care. 

Consider making your own animal shapes: 

Make a  turkey shape using an outline that  looks like a plump bowling ball,  and  add multi color feathers! 
 HolllyhockJunction 

Fimo Clay Play

The daughter, an artist who watercolor paints
Sought creative day care for her mother Edith.
The helper brought Fimo clay.
The first day, Edith made a doll with many details - perfectly complete and sweet.
Edith and  the helper were pleased. 
And so was the  daughter who  never realized her mother had this talent.

Fimo  clay play - young and old  fun !

Deuteronomy 32:2  Small rain upon the tender herb... at HollyhockJunction

Ride to the Ferry

Ride to the Ferry  as told by Jan
   Coleen and I had a good day in Seattle.  We decided to take a day off from work, go shopping and have lunch.  We left the guys at home and just walked on, (the ferry).  The old terminal is being torn down and there was major  construction going on,  so the walkway was long.  For fun, we turned on our Fit Bits.  It was sunny, the tides were low and there was  the scent of salt sea in the air.  We were people-watching as we went.

   A cabby stopped and dropped off a gray haired  man and helped him into his wheel chair. He was a man of rumpled brokenness, and yet he inched towards the ferry dock. (For us to  walk it took ten minutes.) He had arthritic hands, a foggy eye, and at least two teeth missing in front.  He was gaunt, and didn't look strong enough to make it that far.

   Colleen and I  glanced sideways at each other as we were about to pass by.  Then we stopped.  We decided to help out.
   "Hi,   do you want a push?"  I stated in my most persuasive voice.
   "I'd appreciate it",  he said,  with a twisted smile.  He told us that his name was Leo, and he was a Vietnam veteran.  He'd just flown in from Denver, and was catching the ferry to go to Bremerton to pick up his dog.  I wondered if it was a service dog,  but I didn't ask.

   The elevated walkway wound for several blocks around the construction area. When Coleen or I hit a bump ,  Leo groaned.  The poor guy must have been in pain.  How hard it must be for him.  Even so,  he thanked us for getting him to the ferry,  and for being angels.  

   As we walked away from the waterfront, and  towards Anthropologie,  Coleen reflected on our encounter with Leo.  "There may have been a quicker way,"  she said.  "The cabby could've dropped Leo off one block over, where most likely, there's  an elevator he could have taken."
   "Oh well, it was good,"  I said, lifting my shoulders.    "Besides,   now  I know if I'm ever old like that, and in a wheel chair, and in poor condition,  I won't let it stop me from taking a cab to the ferry.  Someone is bound to come along and give me a push!"

"Small rain on the tender herb,"  at HollyhockJunction  

Prune Juice Junction

  
  

Stamp of Approval

handmade felt bag

  Tara, an occupational therapy assistant, has chapped cracked lips, and she doesn't want her elderly client Roberta, a pert southern belle - a Scarlet O'hara in her day,  to think that she, the helper is sick!  Most likely it's from stress,  and  jumping  in and out of her car and the cold,  during home health visits. 
  She's an outdoor girl with a pony tail and natural skin, but off she goes to the local pharmacy for something that will help.  She purchases a tube of bright red lipstick, and puts it on thick.
  What a reception she  gets when she reaches Roberta's house, (Roberta with bright red lips.)   She thinks,   "Ah yes, the stamp of approval, now I'm hip."    

National 4 - H Week Oct 6 - Oct 12

Remembering 4 H  in  1959.

My apron won prizes in 1959.

  Rural farm families gathered at each other's homes.  Monthly 4 H meetings were held with parents, small siblings, and best cousins included! As members, we had things to learn and do, and it was our parents who worked together as  leaders and teachers helping the 4-H group to hone its youthful skills. 
BAKING: Pie crusts rolled.

MAKING: Weeds in gardens pulled, and little animals fed and growing.

SEWING:  Mastering button holes.

AIMING with our exhibits for  crowns and blue ribbons,and a fun day at the county fair. 

Sixty years later, these are still good skills to have.    This week I'm shortening a pair of slacks for my mother - with a blind stitch hem.

  The four H's on the 4-H clover stand for  
Head; clear thinking 
Heart; greater loyalty
Hands; larger service
Health; better living.
  
Small rain upon the tender herb, at Hollyhockjunction.
Deuteronomy 32:2

The pews

Sentimental Old Me. There are pews for sale on Craig's list:  A little church is getting rid of them, and "replacing the pews with chairs."  Who's idea was that, getting rid of the churches past?  Removing the beautiful solid wood cushioned pews, where generations sat through all of life's church experiences:  Baptism, confirmation, weddings, funerals,  Sunday services, and communion.  I hope they go to a little rural church in need of them.  
   Recently,   I attended a church with an aging population, most on  fixed incomes. No new chairs for them.   An elderly couple winced as they stood up.  Their bones ached.   It  hurt their backs to sit up so straight in the historical pews.  Legs were apt to buckle. 
 Times change and that is to be considered too.  

Games

Gram at 90, as  the saying goes, is as sharp as a tack!  She plays and wins at most games:   Bingo,  and  cards  - Whist, Pinochle, and Rummy.   Her favorite board game is Fast Track,  (also known as Aggravation).  Thank goodness, she's been able to find others who like to play these games competitively.  Then there's Solitaire,  Word Finds, Sudoku...

Emma is much younger, and she's  had a stroke and she likes crossword puzzles. A month ago,  her mind would not let her work a crossword puzzle,  but she was  encouraged to try again.  The book was cradled securely in front of her, and on her own,  she spent half an hour making it work, the best she could do for now.

"Small rain upon the tender herb..."  

Whose woods these are..

It's fire wood cutting season.  Several neighbors have given us permission to cut the windfall trees on their properties.

 "Who's woods these are I think I know?"  This, the  famous line in Robert Frost's famous poem.  I ran across it in the  book,  A Swinger of Birches:  Poems of Robert Frost For Young People. Copyright 1982, with colorful illustrations  by Peter Koeppen. 

A good book for reading excepts in  care giving settings such as library hour.  It's a season to be a caregiver at HollyhockJunction.   

The Psalms around us. Psalm 1
 " And he shall be like a tree
 planted by the rivers of water,
 that bringeth forth his fruit in his season."  

The Mailman

Childrens's book "The Little Mailman
at Bayberry Lane":   Rand McNally 1952

Inside the assisted living building,

 the drivers of wheel chairs and rolators crowd into the hallway waiting for 
the mailman and the mail. 

  

   I write on my to do list:           

Greeting cards need to be sent. 

Tall Prairie Grass

Tall Prairie Grass

Blooms picked in a field of tall prairie grass - Bouquet

A windy day.
Fall is in the air as they say.
So we're out playing -
"Recreation Woodcutting".

Flea Market at HollyhockJunction

Home health care patients sometimes aren't home.  They may have  gone off to an appointment of some other kind. The care provider writes it up as a missed visit.     
One old timer left a note on the door for the  COTA: "I have to work  at my table at the flee market."   (That kind of work can be called Occupational Therapy!)

Today at the flea market near HollyhockJunction, there are elderly  venders, both men and women,  trying to sell primitives.  

  HollyhockJunction

Fresh Beets at HollyhockJunction

Fresh beets 
Stories get told- some of them are  the  stories that grandmothers tell about their grandmothers.  Today it's  the beets brought in from the garden that bring back memories at HollyhockJunction:  
     "Beets remind me of my grandmother,"  Anna said.  "I remember when I was a little girl, Grandma  threw out a pan of beet juice out the back door,  and it landed on a chicken.  We had a pink chicken running around the yard for a few days.  I don't know why I remember such a thing, because  that was almost 90 years ago! " 

Chicken Lawn Ornament.
 Remember making lawn ornaments, in  4 H for the county fair?
Elderly Play and Care at
 hollyhockJunction

Showers of Blessings

music
reaches
the hearts 
of the elderly
quickly and sweetly. 

Summer Rain...

Recently John in a skilled facility, in turmoil, not of his own doing, was torn between a therapy session  and going to a badly needed doctor's appointment. As  he waited, he was calmed by taking deep breaths, and the COTA who asked,  "What is your favorite song?"  

He could not think it, but it was sung by Perry Como.  

Of course, the OTA's  Iphone had a list of  the Como songs, and it was found and played for him.  It was the same one played  for him  and his wife on their wedding day. 

Showers of blessings,  there's a song in that, too, to be found on Youtube:  written by Daniel W. Whittle

Elderly play and care at hollyhockjunction

Perfect.

     The evening news interviewed  an  older gentleman, age 92,  who was working in the grocery store bagging groceries for four hours a day.  He loved his work,  and admitted  that  occasionally he had dropped a melon into the  bag on top of  a loaf of bread, but "I'm here working everyday."
     His smile was one that explained  that making mistakes is sometimes  a part of life.
     In  Scripture, the word perfect is used many times.  In some cases it's  translation means mature.  
     Mature in wisdom and a knowing that we're all in this together. Perfect. 

 hollyhockjunction

Snap!

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!  at the kitchen sink, with the turn of a wrist that is weak.  
Doing "this"  brings Tillie's hands up in the air,  and a belly laugh. Green Bean Therapy.

Paper 9 Patch By Barb
(The patches are cut from old magazines.)

Elderly play and care at

 hollyhockjunction.blogspot.com  

Names on apartment doors

Names on apartment doors keep changing.

Apartment #32:
HER name was Olive.  Olive in assisted living.
But I thought of her as Woodstock.
Woodstock because she popped up here and there without saying a word, 
just like the little bird in the comic strip, Peanuts. 

Most every day, Cindy,  a resident with short term memory loss,  found Olive waiting for her,  perched in a flower print chair just outside the lunch room.  The bob of her head was  a  welcome greeting.  They sat together and chatted, the two.
Then,  one day,  Olive wasn't there.  She had flown away. 
Cindy remembered, and missed her.  

Elderly play and care at hollyhockjunction  

coffee cats

Coffee Cat Coasters

     During coffee hour at the Care Center,  Lorna wheeled herself down the hall,  cradling her soft well warn stuffed cat animal. 

     In a bed, in a room empty of its resident, she spotted a new stuffed cat, and made a trade....

     I see her again,   a wisp of a lady with long thin white hair,  near the nurse station, as I am about to ask a question.  She looks and me and says,  "Are you looking for someone?"  

     I smile.  

She adds softly "Me?"  

 

 hollyhockjunction.blogspot.com   

The Energy of a Tree

"I went outside with an elderly lady  and stopped in my tracks to admire this tree.

It had so much strength, and its branches spread out over the whole yard 

as if it were protecting those who lived there.  The lady said her parents planted

that tree.  It is alive.  That tree communicated with me today.  

I got a little sad, though, because it is losing another loved one."  Tawnia