Tag Archives: dementia

Monday. Again!?

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Monday, August 17, 2026

It’s Monday again! The weeks seem to be zipping by at breakneck speed. I don’t know what happened to the summer but here we are nearly at back to school season! My hubby went off to Colorado himself on Thursday so I came home from work to an empty house – a new experience since we lost our dog in early July. It was a bizarre thought more than anything and in practice, I was fine with it and have had a good weekend alone … but it certainly went by quickly and hubby’s in the air as we speak, jetting back to Maine. He’ll be here before I know it.

I thought I’d spend hours and hours knitting in my studio but I surprised myself and busied myself most of the days. I worked Thursday and Friday, of course, and then Saturday I went on an adventure to Christianson’s Farm Stand in Readfield (sorry, I should probably have taken at least one photo) where I bought some veggies and fresh corn on the cob! I made Ratatouille for dinner and added it to leftovers from Thursday night. My husband’s the cook in our house and I’d rather not be – I made enough one night to last for two nights at least! Anyway, the veggies were beautiful and delicious, too. I also treated myself to a lobster roll for lunch. We have a new place in Oakland that I wanted to try and they were sold out on Friday night when I went by. It was by far the freshest lobster roll I”ve had in maybe forever and the roll was perfectly buttered and grilled. Yum. (And no shredded bagged lettuce! IYKYK! I also made some of my “world famous” oatmeal cranberry scones. That will make my hubby happy!

Yesterday I attended a celebration of life after picking up and unpacking some groceries which meant two trips to Augusta which is out of the ordinary for me/us. It was a lovely tribute to our book club friend, Kathi and I was thoroughly impressed when her grandson stood up to remember his grandmother at the very end. He said he simply knew her as his grandmother and thanked those who told stories about her for teaching him that she was so many different things to so many people. I hope one day that my grandchild remembers me as “just” their grandmother. If that’s the case then I will consider mine a well-lived life.

I have been knitting! I started a new project after putting my daughter’s sweater on hold until I can try it on her in early September. I cast on the Make Mine a Double sweater by Millie at Tribe Yarn. I saw it in a social media post and couldn’t get it out of my head (a lot like the green linen Broadgate Tabard. I waited for a few weeks before buying the yarn because it was a serious financial investment especially since I couldn’t see the yarn in person or feel it so you know it was a really strong draw. Anyway, I cast on and started knitting – this sweater/jumper is knitted top down in the round with US10 needles and the pattern says that I can make my size with 2 hanks. I have gone back and forth on what size to make because I don’t love a ton of ease on me. The suggested ease is 10+ inches which would tell me to knit the large but I think I’m going to knit the medium which will give me more like 6 inches of positive ease. Enough for me.

The yarn is exquisite! It’s the softest silk mohair and the color changes are fascinating and they keep me knitting and knitting because I want to see how the colors ease from one into the next. My hank started with a deep chocolate brown and has eased into a blue … it’s stunning. I am loving it.

I’ve finished the knititng on my second felted bowl. I cast on and practically finished knitting this on Friday during my knitting classes. It’s a super bulky wool knitted on huge needles (I knit mine on US15 and US17a which i had) and then felted. I have a front-loader and very hot water. I’ve done the first felting and today I’ll felt it once more. I’m going to write up the pattern because I started with a Plymouth pattern that called for two strands of worsted held double and did an ombre0type color change. I used a super bulky variegated wool. I hope it’ll sell some yarn in the shop.

And today was a good mail day! I got my kit to knit up It is Magic by Isabell Kraemer in Myak yarn’s Fior di Cashmere in the original colors as the sample was knitted. This was another social media response – do you think I should stay off social media? – to a new design that I really liked and I really liked the original colorway. Myak had a sale on the kits and I jumped. The yarn arrived today and it’s gorgeous! I have a feeling that this will have to wait to jump onto the needles until I finish my Make Mine a Double and my daughter’s Levitate Wrap. I really don’t need any more yarn for any more sweaters. I will not have any room in my closet soon enough. (Maybe I have to give away a few sweaters to make room for the new ones?)

Anyway, it’s been a good time for knitting and reading. I’ve read a couple of good books that I really enjoyed. I am a slow reader (it’s not a race, right?) and I really only read at night before I go to sleep so I read maybe a book a month. I really liked Braiding Sweetgrass that we read for my first July Book Club and this time we’re reading Ann Patchett’s Whistler. I am loving it! I also bought the bonus book – we had a third meeting in the middle of our two regular meetings with the author, Susan Koen, and the book is titled Dancing in the Face of Death. It’s a memoir about her experience as a caregiver to her partner who is diagnosed with dementia. Susan was a delightful bookclub guest and there’s nothing like discussing a book with the author in the room. Hearing the stories first-hand is very powerful.

We’ve got a lot going on in the yard and on the water, passers-by both feathered and human (and too close) and the hummingbirds seem to be fueling up for their long trip home. This morning the wind was blowing and they were hanging on to the feeders for dear life! LOL. We have been enjoying our veggie garden and have a few tomatoes and squash and we are getting our first peas! (Beans are growing but no fruit yet.) And my Clivia in my atelier is blooming again! This time it has three flowers. I love the color of the flowers and it’s been fun to see it thrive … although there is a sticky bug on it that I can’t seem to get rid of that’s why it’s up in my atelier. I’ll keep plugging.

Gone knitting.

Summer Solstice – a little different this year

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Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. For the past two years on this day, I’ve been knitting from sun-up to sundown to raise awareness about Alzheimer’s Disease in honor of my mother who passed away after a long decline with this illness.

This year, however, I’m really busy with volunteering as president of our lake association and this is the season where all the planning (or sometimes the lack of planning) comes to fruition and I have to take the morning to accomplish some lake tasks – register our DASH (pontoon boat for suction harvesting invasive milfoil) boat, pick up some plastic boxes to store papers so they won’t be eaten by mice in storage, etc.) And I have a couple of phone calls to make as well. By the time I actually get to sit down to knit, it will be noon at the earliest – and I was out of the house before 9am.

But as I knit today, I’ll be thinking about my mother and the disease that she so feared as a younger woman. I remember her saying things like, “I must be getting Alzheimer’s,” when she forgot something. If there’s a reality of manifesting your own destiny, then I’d say my mother did just that. She was forgetting things that mattered by the time my children we in elementary school and she was in her mid-sixties. My age. She forgot her purse when we went to the grocery store, she forgot to take the emergency brake off when she was driving the car, she forgot that she’d already mixed the mayonnaise mixture for potato salad. She couldn’t organize things like the grocery list and shopping for groceries so she said that there was enough even though there wasn’t. She forgot how to feed her cat and would stand in the middle of her kitchen with a can of cat food and couldn’t figure out what else she needed to get the food to the cat. She forgot how to make coffee in her coffee pot so she would walk to the local restaurant for her coffee and say that she liked the walk in the morning. She left her purse at the muffin shop, and the jewelry store, and forgot it when she went to the gas station. The list is lengthy. She forgot so much that we couldn’t leave her alone with the grandchildren and that was very hurtful. We had to take away her keys to the car eventually and hire people to help her and care for her. And eventually we had to find her a home in an assisted living care home. None of us enjoyed any of that.

And then mom forgot who we were.

She lived for ten years after her diagnosis. Watching our mother and grandmother fade away was so sad. The kids didn’t want to see her at the end, preferring to remember her as the vibrant, active, fun, happy grandmother. She became agitated and tearful, she couldn’t speak and finally she was bedridden, curled in fetal position, hands atrophied, gaunt, empty-eyed. She passed away in the fall of 2008. She was 76 years old.

I’ll knit today for my mother and in hopes that a cure will be found so that families and victims of this horrid disease don’t have to experience it as we did. And I’ll have a bourbon old fashioned cocktail tonight in her memory. My mother and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye but she loved me and she adored my children and I wish she could see them today. She’s missed so much and we have missed her, too. Cheers to you, Mom. I hope you can see how great your family has grown and continues to grow. We are all here because of you (and some help from Dad, too.)

Gone knitting.