Celebration of Life

Caregiving expert Patricia Smith on planning a celebration of life for a terminally ill loved one.

- Thinkstock

by Patricia Smith

QUESTION: My husband’s sister, Janine, has ovarian cancer and is not expected to live beyond three months. She is still mobile and seems to want to enjoy as much of life as she can. With that in mind, I invited Janine, two other siblings and three nieces and nephews to be houseguests for three days for some quality of time together, sort of a celebration of life. They have all accepted and now I’m wondering how to go about planning such a weekend. I know Janine tires easily, but several of the guests are young and full of energy. What do you suggest for activities for this very special, but very sad, occasion?—Helena

ANSWER: You are very kind to host this celebration of life that promises to hold many wonderful memories in the years to come. My first thought: Build in a number of options and choices for your guests. Weather permitting, plan a number of outdoor activities. Fresh air will energize and create a healthy environment for both Janine and her guests. If you have a lawn, set up a bocce ball or croquet set. This will allow Janine the choice to play, or sit and enjoy watching others. If there is a seashore, lake, river, bay or even a running stream nearby, plan a picnic lunch one of the days. Again, water offers everyone choices—swimming, wading, body surfing, sand castle building, or enjoying the sunshine. Keep menus simple and healthy. Go continental style for breakfast with juice, fresh coffee, tea, bran muffins, fruit, yogurt and granola. Most guests welcome lunch buffets with sandwich fixings, salads and fruit. Do you know Janine’s favorite dessert? If so, either prepare or purchase the sweets at a local bakery. She will appreciate the effort. If you can accommodate everyone at your dining room table, choose to serve dinners family-style. Casual dining provides an atmosphere where good conversation can take place. Welcome lazy afternoons where nothing is planned. Build in some time for Janine to nap or rest. Your guests can rest as well, or choose to take a walk, a drive or even go to a movie. Keep plans very flexible, take everyone’s wishes into consideration, and both Janine and her guests will have a visit to remember.

Got a caregiving question? Submit yours here.

Patricia Smith is a certified Compassion Fatigue Specialist with 20 years of training experience. As founder of the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project© (www.compassionfatigue.org), the outreach division of Healthy Caregiving, LLC, she writes, speaks and facilities workshops nationwide in service of those who care for others. She has authored several books including To Weep for a Stranger: Compassion Fatigue in Caregiving, which is available at www.healthycaregiving.comor Amazon.com.

Read more: http://www.spryliving.com/articles/celebration-of-life/#ixzz23up6QXMS

Apple-cinnamon golden oats for breakfast, apple brownies for the picnic!

Waiting for something to happen

http://youtu.be/yDu0jYiz-v8

Queen of the garden!

Region 5 West - XC Racing & Team-flying Camp Chilhowee Gliderport September 1-9, 2012

Three events will be held at Chilhowee Gliderport during the Labor Day week (September 1-9, 2012):

·         The SSA-sanctioned Region 5 West (R5W) Regional is a split-period contest taking place over the Labor Day weekend (Sept. 1, 2, 3) and the following weekend (Sept. 8, 9).

·         The GTA (Georgia-Tennessee-Alabama) race series will hold a 3-day race during the Labor Day weekend (Sept. 1, 2, 3). GTA members will integrate within the other activities during the first weekend, and GTA pilots flying in the R5W Regional will also get a GTA score.

·         A two-prong cross-country and team-flying practice camp will be held during the week on Sept. 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Pilots are welcome in all three events. Those wanting to make it a full week of fun-filled activities can elect to participate in one, two, or all three soaring events, and/or enjoy the many hiking, rafting, and other activities that the local Over-Hill area offers during the week.

R5W Regional: Register on SSA website. Contact Sarah Arnold at info@chilhowee.com. Registration is $200 plus $43 per tow. Price of the first 2000’ tow and Saturday night dinners on the 2^nd and 9^th are included. Guest registration for one weekend only is $120 plus $43 per tow with one Saturday night dinner included. Extra dinners are $15.

XC Racing & Team-flying Camp: The Camp will have two parallel sessions:

·         One will cater to pilots desiring to discover cross-country soaring and to pilots who are relatively new to racing. Morning lectures will focus on the fundamentals of cross-country soaring, with topics such as preparation, instrumentation, thermalling, route optimization, McCready, etc. and will also review the basics of contest flying. Based on participant’s interest, afternoon flying will include flying in small groups over small practice circuits, each group being led by an experienced mentor pilot, including some members of the US Soaring Team.

·         The second session will be for more advanced and experienced pilots and will focus on team-flying methods and techniques. Morning lectures will include some materials from the US Team practice week. Afternoon flying will focus on pair-flying over practice tasks, followed by reviews, critiques, and discussions in the evening or over dinner.

Costs – $80 plus $43 per tow. No extra charge to full Region V West registered pilots.

Contact: To allow proper scheduling of tow planes, events, lectures, materials needs, etc., please let Sarah know your intent to participate in the Camp, including which session (cross-country or team-flying session) as soon as possible.

Sarah Arnold
Owner/OperatorChilhowee Gliderport
(423) 506-9015
www.chilhowee.com

__._,_.___

from Dave Strange

Finally....Slavery Made Personal

   It is often true that "what you touch, touches you."
    For example, I remember a few years ago, a family reunion was held to celebrate the restoration of a cemetery that we had done.  Members of the family came, literally, from all corners of the continental U.S.  After the ceremony, the leader of that family effort came over to me.  "See that man over there with his hand on the tombstone?"
    I looked and saw a grown man leaning respectfully toward a tall old tombstone, his hand flat against it .... tears flowing from his eyes.  "That is my son," the woman said. "He disagreed with this cemetery restoration work the whole time, thinking it to be just a silly waste of time over people he had never known."
    "That tombstone is his great-grandfather, and he just told me, 'Now I get it, Mom.  Now I get it.' "
    That is how I feel about some old papers that I come across from time to time at the Museum.
    We had several on loan a few years ago, for us to scan to our computer digital files.
    But I came across another just recently, as I sorted through one of our collections.
    Slave papers.  Slave bill of sales.
    Now I "know" about slavery and I "know" that it was wrong.
    But to personally touch a paper that was hand written out the same as if one was selling a cow, and touching the folds in the paper from when it was folded up and placed in the "owner's" pocket.

Now, I gotta say, that touches me.  It brings home, in simple terms, the reality of things.

    The slave bill of sale we have at the museum describes "for a sum of seven hundred dollars.....a negro man named Harry" described as "sound in body and mind except the tip of a finger on the left hand."

    It was dated 1859.  With the Civil War so close at hand, I wonder if the man ever saw freedom.

    Others I have seen describe women and children being bought and sold.  One I remember in particular was a bill of sale for a mother and two children in 1811.

    1811.  More than half a century before slavery was ended in America.  That bill of sale described them as "slave for life", and I suppose they were.  I wonder and fear what all might have happened to that family, so far from any hope of freedom.

    Now, this might all seem trite and silly to some who have closer ties to such things.  Silly to others because such things were so long ago.

    But it is not silly to me.

    And I doubt it is now silly to you.

    If it is, come touch one of these papers sometime.  Visit a grave site of a long-ago relative, touch the tombstone, and think seriously for a moment about real people of our past.

    If you touch the past, it will touch you.

Thank you for being a Friend of the Bullitt County History Museum. 

David Strange

Your Long Journey - The Starling Sisters AFF 2012

This is new to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et8HOpC8m2U&feature=youtube_gdata_player

WSPA’s Annual Seminar, Final Report | Soaring Cafe

http://soaringcafe.com/2012/07/wspas-annual-seminar-final-report/#7

All You Ever Do (Is Give Me The Blues)

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OHBWfGOVoA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Mom and Dad

Yellow squash "soup," first-picked green beans, & carbmaster yogurt Popsicle

WSPA Chilowhee Soaring Seminar

Gerry--great tow pilot!

Not much lettuce left, but sliced kohlrabi is moving in to fill the gap. 1st volunteer tomato!

Wheat berry risotto with asparagus, peas & lime, lambs' quarter, chicken & Lodi applesauce!

Gospel Acclamation

Lodi Applesauce

crazy cilantro and lots of daisies. also lettuce, onions, parsley, peas & asparagus

IMG_6453

 

garden

IMG_6452

 

A Ninety-Nines project?

AirVenture Grounds Beautification

Over the past few years, investments on our site such as clearer signage, updated restrooms and improved drainage have helped improve the AirVenture experience. This year, EAA hopes to plant about 200 trees to bring much needed shade on those long, hot summer days. We invite you to join us in this effort! Plant a tree in your name for a donation of $750.

Each donated tree is an Autumn Blaze Maple, one of the most popular new tree introductions in history. Traffic stopping, reliable red fall color, and the fastest growing maple mature 3 to 5 feet or more per year! Your donated tree will provide an abundant amount of shade with minimal fall clean up.

Order your tree online by selecting "Other Amount," enter $750 in the accompanying box, select "AirVenture Grounds Tree" as the program you'd like to support, and fill the necessary personal information.

To learn more about donating a tree on the AirVenture grounds, please contactdevelopment@eaa.org or telephone 1-800-236-1025. 

Learning chant: ICEL "Glory to God."

I know.  There are flags on the notes.  Why? Because we need a little help.

A music student learns Debussy’s Clair de Lune by counting 123 123 123 123, while the uninitiated listener hears something quite different. I envy that listener, because I will never be able to hear what he hears.

We've been using the "no rhythm notated" stemless chant tones, but 95% of the world interprets that as quarter notes.

Debussy had to write his music somehow.  So do we.  We can write for the desired result. 

This arrangement is for the cantor, choir,  and accompanist first learning to sing the ICEL Glory to God (2010), which is currently found in every Catholic missal. It follows the accepted standards for rhythm in chant, without the uncertainty. And it really doesn't allow us to fall into that mono-rhythm that we too often end up singing.

If the assembly sings along by following the chant from the official ICEL melody in their missal, they have the opportunity to learn by hearing a pretty natural chant flow.  The accompaniment keeps things moving a little, and in a year or two or ten, if anyone likes it well enough to sing it a capella, the chant will have broken its bonds.  

It could happen.


ICEL Glory to God accompaniment (unofficial)
 ICEL Glory to God vocal (unofficial)

ICEL Glory to God (gloria) vocal

Keyboard accompaniment in next post.

ICEL Glory to God (gloria) accompaniment piano vocal

See next post for vocal part.vocal part

ICEL Glory to God optional 4-part choir phrase

For measure 34:

Raspberries !

Laura's Turtle Graphic

Laura Turtle Graphic

 

Been there, Done that. At least I may be leveling out.

Born- again & hippocampus

http://www.philly.com/philly/health/132456883.html

Religion in human evolution

Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age by Robert N. Bellah  (12 customer reviews) Kindle Price:   $21.00 Auto-delivered wirelessly

Religion in Human Evolution by Robert Bellah

I am thrilled!! I have been slowly easing into this marvelous life-work book, and today I read that Bellah will base his organization on Merlin Donald's divisions of consciousness. Whoo-hoo!!! And there will be 700 more pages of this. A treasure-trove! AND, just so you know, right now this expensive, scholarly, readable book is on sale at Amazon & kindle for half-price. If you're looking for me this summer, you'll know where to find me--in this book. YESS!!! (If you want to find me physically, look in the garden or at KBRY with the glider folks.) SUMMERTIME!!!!!!!!!!

Evaluating Rituals

Gilbert Chin
Rituals—protocols designed to make a problem go away or to bring about a favorable outcome—are widely used across cultures yet causally inexplicable within the mechanistic schema of the physical world. Legare and Souza collected judgments of ritual effectiveness from patrons of public health centers in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. They found, not surprisingly, that individuals who had themselves used rituals (referred to as simpatias) reported a stronger belief in their effectiveness. They also found, via experimental manipulation of scenario simpatias, that three characteristics contributed significantly to these judgments: (i) the number of steps in the protocol to be performed; (ii) the repetition of one or more steps in the ritual; and (iii) the inclusion of religious icons. Taken together, these findings are consistent with the proposal that rituals activate an intuitive system of causal belief.
Cognition 124, 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.03.004 (2012).

Summer Music

Hello, students and alumni.

The summer schedule has finally shaken

out! If you would like lessons during the

summer, I will be teaching on (mostly)

Mondays at St. Joe.

Some of you have already made

decisions and talked to me, so here are

the details. If you have not, please let me

know by the end of this week so I can set

the times of the afternoon sessions.

I'm offering

8 summer private lessons,

2 rainy-day mini-events and

a final concert on July 24 at St. Joe

for $150.

Double header:

Come back on Monday afternoon for

ear training and instruments and/or

composition and writing.

Dates:

Tuesday May 29

Monday June 4

Monday June 11

Monday June 18

NO Monday June 25

Monday July 2

Monday July 9

Monday July 16

Monday July 23

Tuesday, July 24 7 PM recital

Celebrate

Celebrate

Celebration of family

Family celebration

Susanna

Uncle Eugene

They said it

"slower'n'Joe"

"And WHY would I want to do THAT?"

Lord, Save Us (nunc dimittis)

May the Lord Bless You (Irish Blessing) Bob Fabing

Derby day

Derby day

Derby day

Derby day

Derby day

Derby day

Derby Day

hettingr sent you this page: Design Crush & Popsicles!

Design Crush & Popsicles!

http://www.stumbleupon.com/to/s/1HEVRx

music for funerals p1

music for funerals p2

Religion

Clifford Geertz paraphrased:  "a religion is a system of symbols that, when enacted by human beings, establishes powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and  motivations that makes sense in terms of an idea of a general order of existence." I'm reading "Religion in Human Evolution" by Robert Bellah.

Elenco Snap Circuit Green Alternative Educational Kit : Educational Kits | RadioShack.com

This one we don't have, but might buy next.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4004568

Electronics 101 Snap-Kit - RadioShack.com

This is really good.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102914

Nancy & me. 99s

Dayton Wright B Flyer

Airman's Medical

This is a copy of an article.  I don't want to lose it.

For Elders With Dementia, Musical Awakenings

by NPR STAFF

Listen Now

All Things Considered

[8 min 19 sec]

• Add to Playlist
• Download
• Transcript

 

EnlargeMichael Rossato-Bennett

Joe, a nursing home resident, broke into song during a personalized music session. His story and others are documented in the film Alive Inside.

COMMENTS FROM THE NPR COMMUNITY

 

Wow, this was a driveway moment for me, I am a social service worker in a nursing home and I couldn%u2019t wait to get in the house to see the video. I sat at my home desk and cried as every day we all work hard to give our residents quality of life and enjoyment, and any social worker or activity worker can tell you there are many residents like Henry and would give just about anything to give them just a moment of happiness like henry. I can%u2019t wait to go to work and share this story.

 

–Clare Pastion (seeseep)

Join the Discussion »

 

text size A A A

April 18, 2012

Henry, an elderly Alzheimer's patient in an American nursing home, recently became a viral star. In a short video that has been viewed millions of times online, he starts out slumped over and unresponsive — but undergoes a remarkable transformation as he listens to music on a pair of headphones.

YouTube

The clip is part of a documentary called Alive Inside, which follows social worker Dan Cohen as he creates personalized iPod playlists for people in elder care facilities, hoping to reconnect them with the music they love. Cohen tells NPR's Melissa Block that the video of Henry is a great example of the link between music and memory.

"He is able to actually answer questions and speak about his youth, and this is sort of the magic of music that's familiar for those with dementia," Cohen says. "Even though Alzheimer's and various forms of dementia will ravage many parts of the brain, long-term memory of music from when one was young remains very often. So if you tap that, you really get that kind of awakening response. It's pretty exciting to see."

Cohen says his goal is to make access to personalized music the standard of care at nursing facilities. An early concern, he says, was that headphones might isolate the patients even further. But when he first implemented the project on a large scale in 2008, putting 200 iPods in four facilities around New York, he got the opposite result: a flood of stories from the staff about increased socialization.

"People wanted to share their music with others: 'Here, you've gotta listen to this,' or 'What was the name of that song?' " Cohen says. "The music is great, but to me, perhaps the even bigger win is people having better and more relationships with those around them."

DAN COHEN'S TIPS ON MUSIC AND THE ELDERLY

Get the playlist right. Find out the person's tastes and create a varied mix: no more than five to seven songs per artist. Have them weed out tracks that are so-so, so you end up with 100 or 200 songs that all resonate.

Keep it simple. Make sure the elder knows how to use the player, or that someone nearby can help. Use over-ear headphones rather than earbuds, which can fall out.

Be patient. It can take time to reach the music memory. If the person is responding, feel free to sing along. If someone doesn't like the headphones, try a small speaker at first and incorporate the headphones gradually over time.

Keep it special. Don't leave the player on all the time. Nursing homes are finding it works well during transitions: If someone is hesitant to take a bath or eat or get dressed, music may help move things along.

Cohen admits that the realities of funding and staffing mean that not all nursing homes will have the appetite for this level of individualized care. However, he points out that the pace of technological advancement is making iPods cheaper and easier to round up.

"My goal has been to find ways of bringing the cost down to zero," he says. "Since there have been so many generations of new digital devices that come fast and furious, we havethe old iPods — many of us in our drawers at home — so let's bring them in. On Long Island, there are five school districts that are running iPod donation drives."

Cohen says that, ultimately, the project is about helping people remember who they are.

"When you leave your home, you leave your family, you leave your surroundings and you go into a new environment; it's tough," he says. "So anything that you can maintain or stay connected with that relates to you [is helpful]. And what's more core to your being than music?"

Alive Inside screens April 18, 20 and 21 at the Rubin Museum in New York City. You can learn more, and see additional clips from the film, at the Music & Memory website.