- 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 BallantyneDirty Little SecretsDecember 7, 2015Our culture tends to romanticize things or speak in euphemisms about the hard stuff. Nobody tells new mothers just how challenging the 24 hour presence of a newborn is. It would sound ungrateful. We soldiered on in relative silence, and unless you have the luxury and the joy of a family nearby that consists of supportive women: loving and wise aunts, grandparents and a trusted mother, it is a daunting stretch those first months and then really the first years. Spreading the responsibility helps both...
- Terry BallantyneThe Dog FriendsJuly 26, 2015The Dog Friends One never knows what the group you call family will consist of. We are all so far flung from our natural extended family that in a crisis they could not do much for us. With a distance of 100 miles away or more , they can’t wrap there arms around you, make a pot of tea, call the doctor, or hold your hand. For those very important and immediate comforts ,you need trusted friends next door, around the block or a quick car...
- Terry BallantyneMind Your EldersApril 20, 2015I’m getting some pushback about the term Olderhood. “Why not Elderhood” “Why or Seniorhood” I am asked. “I don’t want to be old.” they tell me. I called it Olderhood because everyone is older than someone. First graders hold sway over kindergarden kids. High school kids disdain the junior high group. Seniors are the elders to the Freshman class. As we move through life we are getting older, and this column is not directed solely at the 80+ crowd. There are things of interest hopefully...
- 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