Finding Joy | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on July 25, 2017:

As children, finding joy is as simple as picking a dandelion or coaxing Daddy into being the Tickle Monster for a few minutes. As the years pass, however, joy sometimes becomes more elusive. More joints hurt, more friends develop debilitating or terminal illnesses, and social calendars have more dates for funerals than for weddings. Joy is still possible, but it takes more work, and it sometimes requires an attitude adjustment.

If you’ve spent any time on Facebook, you know it can be a joyless place if you’re not very selective about what you read. Some users post nothing but political tirades and negative news while others give more information than most of us want to know about their long list of medical complaints, medications, and procedures. I’m all for being well informed and also for keeping up with friends and praying for them in their times of need. However, caution is necessary in order to keep all that negativity from sucking all the joy out of life.

Why We Don’t Talk about Politics | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on February 7, 2017:

It’s almost impossible to avoid politics in this day and time – especially on Facebook. Last week I saw a picture of cows standing behind a barbed-wire fence with a red arrow pointing to the fence post. The caption read “A non-political post. You’re welcome!” I thought it was cute, and it seemed innocuous enough, so I shared it. Several people “liked” it, and a few people shared it – but two of my friends actually made political comments about it.

 

I’m as political as anyone, but I have yet to see a political exchange in which one participant has influenced another participant to change his or her mind – at least about politics. I was, however, involved in an email exchange that changed someone’s opinion about me.

Feeling the Holiday Spirit | by Linda Brendle

The Ghost of Christmas Present

Thursday afternoon I posted a “Bah Humbug” Facebook comment about a local radio station that has changed its format to all Christmas music for the duration. To say that my brother loves Christmas would be a huge understatement. In fact, he makes the Ghost of Christmas Present look like Scrooge, and he took exception to my comment and those of some of my friends. This was his last entry: Can anybody explain to my simple mind the abject travesty of playing Christmas music and putting up lights in the first half of November? I’m really having a hard time with all this negativity!

I started to respond, but realized it was going to involve more typing than I wanted to do on my phone, so I shifted into blogger mode and started thinking in terms of a post. After mulling through a few thoughts that seemed familiar, I realized that I wrote how I feel about the holidays in 2011. It was well received, so I posted it again last year. Now, for what is becoming a Life After Caregiving tradition, here’s the 3^rd annual posting of “Feeling the Holiday Spirit.”

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Yesterday one of my Facebook friends posted this question: Am I the only one not feeling the holiday spirit? I left a witty, social network kind of reply, but I’ve been thinking about it since then. Am I feeing the holiday spirit? My first question is which holiday are we talking about? My next question is what does the holiday spirit feel like?

Be Creative but Wary when Planning Activities for Alzheimer’s Patients | by Linda Brendle

Mom and me.

When trying to decide what to write about this morning, I pulled out my “Sources” file and looked for ideas. After 300+ blog posts, it’s sometimes a challenge to come up with something new and fresh. There’s a new game on Facebook involving a list of things your friends might not know about you. I considered writing something like that, but at this point, anything I haven’t already written about myself is probably something I don’t want to reveal, so I went back to the file.

 

One item that caught my eye was an article on the Alzheimer’s Association website called “101 Activities.” It offers simple suggestions of things to do with your Alzheimer’ patient like listening to music, coloring a picture, or tossing a ball. There is no further explanation and no warning of how these simple activities might backfire. However, as you might imagine, I have a couple of tales that might give a caregiver pause before engaging in some of the activities.

Riddles, Giraffes, and Jesus | by Linda Brendle

I’m still having computer problems (see Monday’s post). David is making progress, but it still freezes up frequently. I’m holding my breath that it will cooperate long enough for me to post this article I wrote for Red Letter Christians. How about you? Did you fall for the riddle? And how would you answer Jesus’s question?

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Anyone who spends any time at all on Facebook has seen a proliferation of giraffes on the site recently. For a few days, I noticed but didn’t pay much attention, but when one of my good friends turned into the long-necked, spotted creature, I read her status to see what was going on. It was a game based on a riddle. If I knew the answer, I was supposed to send it to her in a private message. If I got it right, she would acknowledge my intelligence in a comment under her status. If I got it wrong, I agreed to change my profile photo to a giraffe for 3 days. I’ve always been pretty confident of my intelligence, so I sent her what I was sure was the correct answer. My confidence was misplaced, and I was soon searching for a picture of just the right giraffe.

Alzheimer’s from the Patient’s Viewpoint – Video by Rick Phelps

Rick Phelps was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease in 2010 at the age of 57. He started an Alzheimer’s and impairment support group called Memory People, a network of closed Facebook groups where patients, caregivers, family members and advocates can share stories and walk this journey together. The groups are closed, not for purposes of exclusivity, but so that anything shared is safe and private.

Is It Live or Is It Memorex | by Linda Brendle

Yesterday was my birthday, and if you remember the commercial quoted in the title of this post, you’re like me, older than dirt. But I don’t want to talk about age today. I want to talk about birthday greetings. I got a LOT. I got two cards in the mail, I got lots of face-to-face wishes and hugs at the Senior Center, and I got a phone call from my sweet friend Mary. Everything else was electronic. My question is, were the electronic greetings live or Memorex?