My Halloween cat collection is in storage. The calendar flipped to November. The time has come to finalize holiday plans. I have always been a planner.  Make a plan and work the plan. Schedule and complete as many items on your to do list weeks before the event.  My to-do list with plan ahead week by week and day by day strategies keeps needless stress away. I am calm and peaceful. I have had Parkinson’s 10 1/2 years. My symptoms are mainly slowness of movement and rigidity. Ten Sinemet tabs daily help to mask symptoms, But I do have some “off” times when the meds do not work as they should. Although the reasons I experience off or down times is unknown, stress is a factor. Happy events and sad events can both be stressful.

Three Weeks Before: Set the menu. Locate recipes. Consider dietary needs, special requests, and traditions. Be wary of eliminating a menu selection if it has been on the menu for 30 years! One year my sister and I decided we did not need mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and noodles–all in the same meal. Well, you do if your brother Larry blurts out ‘Where’s the mashed potatoes?’ before the prayer. If you want to add a new item to the menu, test it now. Last year I added Watergate salad. Watch for special sales on turkey and hams. Our turkey was purchased in October. If you are having guests, decide what you want them to bring. Flowers, bottled drinks, or an appetizer may be helpful.

Two Weeks Before:  Make a master shopping list of all items needed including drinks, napkins, flowers, and food. Check basic pantry items. It may be time to replace cloves from 2018. You may not remember that all the brown sugar was used last month.

Next, make a shorter list from the master list. Then go shopping for pantry and freezer items. Plan your shopping expedition when your meds should be working the best. Be sure to take your water bottle and meds with you. The wheelchair is in the trunk and only used if I have a down time when my meds no longer work. I am immobilized and are unable to walk until the next dose kicks in.

One Week Before: Finalize your shopping list and shop for the perishable items such as fruit, vegetables, herbs, dairy, and bakery.

Four Days Before: Decide on dishes and table linens. Press tablecloth and napkins or toss the linens in dryer with a damp cloth for 10 minutes.  Polish silverware and wash crystal.  Design and set the tablescape.

Three Days Before:  Buy flowers. Complete center piece, guest favors, and decorations. Select serving dishes, stemware, utensils, and trivets. Place on table and label. These tasks are my favorite!

Two Days Before: Make two side dishes that can be frozen or kept in refrigerator. Do prep work such as dicing onions and celery. Select pans and baking dishes. Locate the electric knife and potato masher. Review menu recipes and collect ingredients on counter. For example, sweet potatoes, brown sugar, coconut go in the 3-quart corning ware dish.  Clean as you go and put away ingredients as you go. Run the dish washer. Unload dish washer.

One Day Before; Make one side dish. Rest, retreat, and revitalize! Take your meds on time. Be sure the dish washer is empty. Go to bed early.

Day of Event:  Set your pills up in daily pill box and place on kitchen counter. Set your phone timer for all the daily doses. Stop the task you are doing the minute the timer goes off and take your meds. This process is an absolute requirement. You do not want to stand in the middle of the kitchen staring at the pill container wondering if you just took your pills or not! But it happens allot when you are engrossed in an activity.  If I set up box correctly, I can determine whether I have already taken the dose. Entertaining is both a fun stressor and a negative stressor. I may need to increase the Sinemet dose slightly to remain functional.

Enjoy the time in the kitchen.  Enjoy your guests more! Make one or two easy appetizers. Monitor the turkey. Reheat side dishes.  Assign simple tasks like putting ice in glasses, filling with drinks, and carrying food bowls to table. Ask for help in removing hot pans from oven.  Run through menu right before sitting down. You do not want to forget the Watergate salad in refrigerator! Breathe! You did it!!

Blessings!

Linda

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We’d make a “Purr”fect Pair

My collection of “cat stuff” includes new and vintage valentines. This die cut valentine is from the 1960s. It folds and stands up.  The back shows Gladys gave the valentine to Mary Ellen. It may have been given at a school valentine party. Remember those!

This week I passed out valentines to health care workers when I had a doctor’s appointment. I gave my doctor a recycled valentine from the 1930s; a classmate had given it to my uncle over 90 years ago.  Another day I gave valentines to employees at my residence. Reactions ranged from “this is the only valentine I will get” to “I want to show this to my wife.” Some people were shocked. Others were intrigued with a recycled card. Conversations turned to memories of their school parties. I had fun celebrating Valentine’s Day.

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A Mewsical Party

A word art display advises me to Laugh More and Stress Less. This Tuck postcard featuring amorphized cats makes me laugh. Stress exacerbates Parkinson’s.  Anything I can do to minimize or eliminate stress helps me live my best life now.

Raphael Tuck & Sons used to be the world’s largest postcard publisher. The card company offered a unique history of life in the late 19th and early 20th century.  A series of six cards made up A Mewsical Party. The oilette was produced in Bavaria in 1911 and 1912. It was first published by T.S.N. Dresden in 1852.

During World War II, company headquarters were destroyed including greeting cards, postcards, records and originals. TuckDB Postcards is a non-profit attempting to recreate the lost records.

The post Happy New Year appeared first on Parkinson's My Way.

The Movie Star Look

One of my favorite hobbies is photographing my cats Chauncey, Grace, and Maggie Mae. I also like to go on photo shoots with their siblings when I visit my brother in the country. The tuxedo cat Boots understands  when I say “let’s go on a photo shoot.” He prances, climbs, struts, and sits. He loves to pose and hold a gaze. He is so easy to photograph. I created this card last year from a photo taken in 2018. My brother named him Boots as a kitten and later nicknamed him “Movie Star” after he won an award. I call him Bootsie and simply adore him.

Blessings!

Linda

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I am a part of all that I have touched and that has touched me. ~Thomas Wolfe

My most precious memory of my grandma, Charlotta Estella Seyb Mohr, is spending countless hours by her side at an impressive round oak pedestal table with animal claw feet. I adored her and enjoyed spending time at her home in rural Missouri. That was real easy to do since she  lived about a mile where I grew up.

Family life centered on the heartbeat of the house. What she taught me remains part of my being. I close my eyes, and the table turns into a flower shop on Decoration Day (a day dating back to 1868). We tour her beautiful gardens and pick fragrant spring flowers such as peonies, poppies, irises, snowballs and bleeding hearts. Grandma prays nature will hold the rain for the weekend to preserve these fragile flowers. We make a list of loved ones whose graves we will visit and adorn. Then we arrange the flowers in vases and buckets.

Always Honor Your Loved Ones

“Always honor your loved ones,” she says. I learn that red poppies symbolize remembrance of those who have fallen in war. Grandma’s faith sustained her after losing her mother at age two and her younger brother in World War I at age twenty-two. I choose pink peonies to memorialize my great-grandmother Charlotta. Red poppies blaze on my great-uncle Rupert’s grave.

The Why Behind Red Poppies

When I was older, I learned more about the significance of the red poppy. In 1918, Moina Michael bought a bouquet of poppies and handed them out to businessmen at the New York YMCA because of the poignant effect the poem In Flanders Fields had on her. She asked them to wear the poppy as a tribute to the fallen Americans in World War I. She led a campaign that designated the poppy as the official flower of The American Legion in 1923.

During World War I, American soldiers were buried in the pastures and on the battlefields of Europe, where bright red poppies grew wild among the fresh graves. While caring for the wounded near one of the battlefields, a Canadian doctor, Lt. Col. John McCrae, jotted down these opening lines: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow/ Between the crosses, row on row. . .”

The American Legion Auxiliary is recognized as the world’s largest women’s patriotic service organization. Thousands of crepe paper poppies made by disabled and hospitalized veterans are given out for donations to benefit disabled veterans.

Photo by Bob Fehringer, USTRANSCOM/PA

Video Reading of In Flanders Fields

In 2015,  Legion Magazine and Leonard Cohen released  a powerful video reading of In Flanders Fields on YouTube to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the poem by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. Cohen’s voice is accompanied by stirring imagery from the First World War and helps me to understand what my two heroic great-uncles experienced.

In Memory of My Great-Uncle Rupert Seyb

PVT. RUPERT C. SEYB

My great-uncle, Rupert Carl Seyb, enlisted in Sanborn, South Dakota, on June 5, 1917. He served as a private in Company F, 350th Infantry. 88th Division with American Expeditionary Forces. He was sent to Camp Funston, Kansas and Fort Dodge, Iowa for a short time.  He sailed from Long Island, New York to France in July, 1918.  He died due to valvular heart disease and  influenza in Naix, France, on February 23, 1919, at twenty-six years, two months, sixteen days. He is buried at Saint Paul Cemetery near Kahoka, Missouri.

Honoring his place of death, Naix, France

Rupert Seyb Memorial Card

In sunny France

there came a chance

To test his soul in blood:

He didn’t stop–but o’er the top

He went–and he made good.

And that is why we dare not cry

As his brave soul passes on;

His name’s enrolled on Fame’s

bright scroll

Our glorious valiant son.

Rupert C. Seyb Grave Stone

In Memory of My Great-Uncle Carl Roasa

PVT, CARL A. ROASA

My great-uncle, Carl A. Roasa, was inducted into the Army/Marine unit on July 5, 1917, in Kansas City, Missouri. He served overseas from May 20, 1918, until January 17, 1919, where he died in France of pneumonia at twenty-two years, ten months, eight days. His parents, Albert and Laura Roasa, bought land, planted trees and started Granger Cemetery for the burial of Carl Albert. He was the youngest of six children including five boys and one girl. I read in Carl’s war records that his mother was notified of his death. Although I never met my great-grandmother, I can picture her receiving this devastating news of her beloved son, and my heart breaks.

Carl A. Roasa’s Grave Stone

Carl’s memorial card included this beautiful James Whitcomb Riley poem:

I cannot say and I will not say
That he is dead—He is just away!
With a cheery smile and a wave of the hand,
He has wandered into an unknown land,
And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there.
Mild and gentle, as he was brave
When the sweetest love of his life he gave.
Think of him as the same I say:
He is not dead—He is just away.

A Soldiers’ Memorial was established near the Scotland County Courthouse in Memphis, Missouri, in 1923, led by the Betsy Ross Club. Other organizations joined forces including Home Guards, Order of the Eastern Star, and Mothers of Soldiers. The names of the soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice from the area were chiseled on the memorial pillars. The honor roll of twenty-five soldiers included Carl A. Roasa. The engraving reads “In memoriam to the boys from Scotland County 1914 ~ World War ~ 1918, they gave their all for liberty and democracy.”

Soldiers’ Memorial

Honor Roll

On this Memorial Day weekend,  I pause to reflect on what my two great-uncles’ service and their ultimate sacrifice mean to my life, and I am deeply grateful.

In my mind’s eye today, grandma is watching me arrange pink peonies.

“Your bouquet is breathtaking,”

“Thank you grandma!”

Blessings!
Linda

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If you’ll cook up a liking for me
My Valentine
I’ll waiter round for you

I collect vintage valentines and all stuff feline. So here you go! This is an anthropomorphic valentine, circa 1930s. The diecut valentine stands 4 1/2″ tall and folds in four places. The manufacturer is unknown.

Look at that face!

Whimsical and fun with lots of detail

Blessings!
Linda

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