Trippin' with Susan Straley

  Hello! Hey, Verizon isn’t everywhere!   I got a new phone with a hot-spot capability so that I could hook my computer up and write to you whenever and where ever. But NOOOOOO.   Not at one of my campsites in St. Augustine and not here at Hart Springs near Cheifland, Florida. I am going to be on a podcast for AlzAuthors coming up March 15.   I will tell you more about that and other caregiver programs later. Today is a rain-all-day kind of day.   I am itching to write and catch up with you.   So I am writing this in word and then I will go to the library and copy and paste it and I hope the pictures will go with it.   Do you see pictures?   Then it worked! I know I told you before that Debra has a Weeroll too.   We have planned several camping trips together that have always gotten canceled for one reason or another.   Usually the weather, Last fall it was a hurricane hitting the part of Florida where we were supposed to...

 February 12, 2021 Today was the final day of the annual Caregivers' conference put on by Coping with Dementia .   This morning I was part of a panel of three authors talking about keeping a journal.  We had all been caregivers for someone with dementia, we had all kept journals in some form.  Vicki Veasey started out keeping her journal in calendar form.  This helped her keep track of her parents' symptoms, appointments, happenings.  By keeping track on a calendar she was able to see that her father experienced symptoms around the time of the full moon.  That realization helped her be prepared to deal with those symptoms. That's interesting!  The other panelist was Linda Burhans that does a regular radio show dedicated to caregivers .   Journal Writing 101 I write on paper and I write online. You don't need to commit to every day.  I don't do commitment. With a journal it can be private for just your eyes. You don't need to w...

 Hello!  I have not written to you in a while.  Sorry, procrastination happens.   Maybe it wasn't procrastination as much as the anxiety or weirdness of the political unrest. (For you reading this in the future, on January 6th, 2021 there was an attack on our US Capital with the crowd chanting to hang the vice president who was about to certify the election results from the 50 states.)  The events on top of a year of the rise in cases of COVID19 has many of us anxious and I didn't want to write anything about it and add to our anxiety.  But how could I write and not mention it?  Families and friends are torn apart by not just differing opinions, but deep beliefs in what is the truth. How do you prove what is real when someone insists that every source you site they don't trust.  Every fact you site they believe is false. That is some of our experiences during these times. Anyway, that isn't what I am writing about.   What I wanted t...

 Sunday, December 20, 2020   I did it again.  Some days my mind is just not in the moment and somehow I lose track of important stuff. I was looking forward to this trip.  I was traveling just two or three hours to the coast east of Orlando, FL.  I was excited because I would be spending my holiday with some up-beat and active friends.  We were to be camping in an area where there is water for kayaking, lots of nature for birding, and a trail for biking.  But this morning as I was packing I was in a foul mood.  My neighbor, Mari, commented, "Sue, you are frowning!  You should be smiling, aren't you excited?"   I hadn't even been aware I was in a foul mood, but then I realized that the thrill of going just wasn't in me.  I felt frayed... is that a feeling?  I felt like my brain was a bit scattered.  It wasn't working as sharp as normal and I was having to work extra hard to concentrate and make sure I didn't forget any...