- Terry BallantyneA Few Words About Assisted LivingNovember 18, 2017This is my personal experience, but one that I hear from others is sadly all too common. Choose assisted living, particularly memory care, very carefully. If your parent is healthy and thriving and just needs help with housework or managing medications, assisted living may be appropriate. ADLs (activities of daily living , and IADLs, Instrumental acitivites of daily living , are the skills needed to live independently -- dressing, shopping, cooking, doing laundry, managing a phone. When wrists are bad, or knees are weak, these simple tasks...
- Terry BallantyneThe ButteryJune 8, 2015I took my Mom out for lunch today. I watched her marvel at the hub bub and pace at The Buttery and I can’t help but reflect on the world now and the world she grew up in. She once rode 2 miles to town on a cardboard box, like a skim board being pulled by two draft horses on a set of reins. She was a daredevil. And here she sat, almost terrified at the pace, but fascinated at the women with tats, the...
- Terry BallantyneStuck about making the big move to a smaller house?March 30, 2015You know it's time, you want to want to do this , but you're stuck. This is a big deal. It's the outward expression of your inner acceptance that you are, well, moving on in life. Looking carefully at the quality of your daily life. No deferments, no 'wait till later', no 'I'll get around to it'. If you want to do anything different, you sense, like a bird anticipating winter, that you better fly. Everyone is getting the message. Take only what you need. Resources...
- Terry BallantyneWhen Moving Forward is Really Really HardFebruary 13, 2015For the person selling the family home in their 70s, 80s, or 90s, it represents so much more than a change of residence. And this group has a limited voice and not much say over what happens when adult children step in to be "practical" or "realistic". It is rather like looking at the folks who endured the dust bowl phenomenon in Oklahoma. "Why didn't they just leave?" Why endure that horrific dust and wind and loss and devastation year after year? Because it was...
- Terry Ballantyne
- Terry Ballantyne