Absinthe Valentine’s Day Menu
There are some years when staying home and having a cozy dinner and a movie is the perfect answer to wooing your loved one. Then there are years when you want to get out and enjoy the creative talents of some of the city’s leading chefs and restaurants. This year, we are going out!!!! On February 14 we will be dining at Absinthe, a wonderful restaurant only a block from the Royal LePage office. We love this place for its amazing service and the creative menus. Here is a photo from the Absinthe website and the proposed Valentine’s Day menu……
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Having a menu in French and English does allow you to practice your French and be just a little bit bilingual.
Valerie Zinger email: vzinger@royallepage.com (613-723-5300)
Royal LePage Gale Real Estate, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Moving a Family Member to A Seniors’ Home
My friend Judy Klem works with seniors in Connecticut. She wrote this post for her site on ActiveRain. It is so relevant that I have re-blogged it here so that we can all benefit from her advice.
Moving is always stressful, no matter your age or health. But when the person moving is elderly, becoming frail, and perhaps exhibiting the early signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s, the stress can easily escalate to full-blown panic. Downsizing from a home where they’ve lived for decades, followed by facing the confusion of waking in an unfamiliar home can cause a real downward spiral.
Fortunately, the techniques developed by Senior Move Managers can really ease the situation and help replace potential moving panic with the familiar comforts that mean home.
First, although it’s easy to think you’d be better off taking on all the work and letting Mom – or Dad – just sit and relax, this is not a good course of action. To the extent that your parent can make decisions, involve them wherever you can.
- Make sure your Mom has a tour of the place into which she’ll be moving. Try to make her comfortable with the tour, and ask for help from the staff person and/or the social worker. This is as much for your parent as it is for you, as the primary caregiver.
- As you go along, take photos and note how the room or rooms are laid out. Ask if there is a floor plan you can take away with you, as this will also be a good reference point for your planning.
- Don’t press your parent to do more than they can, but do try to answer – or get answered – whatever questions come up.
- Involve them in the process!
Sorting through the accumulated belongings of a lifetime is a large topic, so I’ll address the details of doing that in a separate post. For now, let’s look at what you do once you’ve got the essentials for your parent – and what those essentials need to include for Mom or Dad to feel comfortable in their new home.
To create a sense of familiarity, observe the day-to-day activities that are most important to your parent, as well as their favorite objects. Take photos of these objects as well as things like the insides of cabinets holding essential objects, and make lists, room by room, of the belongings they’ll need.
You’ll use both the photos and the lists to develop a plan to create a comfortable home environment in the new home. For example, the plan would include these:
- Bedroom - Set up with sheets, pillows, blankets and anything else your Mom usually likes to have on her bed.
- Try to have the bed positioned so that access to the bathroom is in a similar orientation to that at the home she’s leaving.
- Make sure the bed table is on the side she is used to, and includes the things she normally keeps there. Her bedside lamp, perhaps a spare pair of glasses, the book she’s been reading before going to sleep, and so on.
- Get the bed ready first in case the move is really exhausting, and your Mom would like to have a nap.
- Be sure to include artwork and photos that were in her bedroom before.
- Bathroom - Set up with towels and other objects as it was in the previous home, so it feels familiar.
- Set up the medicine cabinet in the same way it was in Mom’s previous home, so she can find everything easily. If prescription meds will be handled by staff, be sure to get all the correct information and medications to them.
- Hang towels and bathrobe, and any other things your parent is used to seeing in her bathroom.
- Include artwork from the previous bathroom.
- Kitchen - Use your photos and floor plans to good effect, and place glasses, cups, plates and so on in cabinets and drawers in as similar an arrangement as possible to the previous kitchen. If Mom is used to reaching for her favorite coffee mug in the cabinet to the right of the stove, make sure it’s in a similar place in the new kitchen. Handle all the objects in the kitchen in this way, and this will help to create a sense of comfort rather than panic at not being able to find everyday objects.
- Sitting Area or Living Room – Bring key pieces of furniture from the previous home, as allowed by the assisted living facility.
- Be sure to include the pillows and throw blankets, as well as the things needed for your parent to continue the activities they normally enjoy.
- Books, music, crossword puzzles, knitting, crocheting, magazines. Anything your parent uses regularly and
- gets pleasure from should be included and set out in a similar way so it’s all easy to see, and feels familiar.
- Be sure to include photos of family and friends. Mom or Dad will enjoy looking at these, and this activity can help when there are some memory problems.
These are just some of the ways you can help replace the panic that can ensue from moving house with a sense of familiarity and comfort. Your senior move manager can be a good resource for this type of information, and can also lend a hand if the work proves to be too much for family members to complete on their own.Remember, there are many sources for help and information available to you. You don’t have to go it alone!
From my Email In-Box: Replace Mom’s Moving Panic with Familiar Comforts
Thanks so much for visiting!
Judy Klem
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Information and content in this blog is Copyright © Judy Klem
The Longest Skateway in North America is Now Open
The Skateway is now open and ready for skate enthusiasts. What a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the Rideau Canal in Ottawa. The Skateway is 7.8 km long. It begins near Canada’s Parliament Buildings and goes along commercial and residential areas to a large manmade lake – Dows Lake. The water in the canal is lowered in the fall. In the above photo, you can see the cement sides to the canal, the bridges that cross it and in the background the very beautiful Chateau Laurier, a top rated hotel in the country.
For the past couple of weeks, we have had low enough temperatures to have the ice thicken. When it reaches a good depth, the canal is flooded (from water pumped up from below the ice), leveled as much as possible, scraped and snow removed after every snowfall. Thousands of people from around the world come to enjoy the canal and, in February, the Winterlude Festival.
If you don’t skate, then walk along the canal and ejoy the skaters, the children being pulled in sleighs, the kiosks for hot drinks and the souvenirs. tasty treats such as the now famous Beaver Tails and then there are the warm-up areas. Everyone with a camera has fabulous photos of skaters on the canal.
Come to Ottawa to enjoy our winter.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robbie1/99922517/
Happy 2011!
May this new year bring us peace, health, love, friends, family, contentment, success, the sound of children laughing, tears of sorrow and of joy, challenges, hope, new interests, a sense of exploration, a bright future, things to look forward to and things to remember fondly.
Here is to a bright and prosperous 2011.
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
This is a poem that Canadian children learn and recite to commemorate November 11, Remembrance Day. For most of us, the poem and its meaning are never forgotten.
Photo credit: J.J. Zinger
Happy Thanksgiving!
May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey be plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have never a lump.
May your beans be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off of your thighs!
Photo credit: Thanksgiving Tureky @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tuchodi/4003359098/
Look What I Found – The Experimental Farm, Ottawa
The Farm is situated smack in the middle of the city, inside the Green Belt. It is one of the Federal Government Department of Agriculture’s functioning research stations. It is also a wonderful place for runners, walkers, cyclists, flower aficionados, picnickers and children. The employees and the Friends of the Farm work non-stop to make the Farm a welcoming place for all. I love visiting the Ornamental Gardens on a regular basis. The planting scheme has perennials blooming throughout the growing season. Photographers visit the gardens getting perfect shots of the different plants and trees.
There is something to see or do for everyone at The Farm.
Look what I found – the flour shoppe ~ cupcakes
Most cupcakes seem to be just right in size but can be too hard or dry to eat. After three visits to the flour shoppe and a sampling of cupcakes, I would say that these are certainly worth getting for a treat. Would I drive across town? Probably not but then I am not overly fond of cake. I like the varying flavours – not everything is available at every visit so there are often surprise flavours waiting to be tried. This shop has been open for only a few weeks but has already managed to get some good press coverage. For anyone living in The Glebe or driving down Bank, it would be fun to stop in and get a few cupcakes for dessert for the family or a party. The cost is $2.50 a cupcake and $14.00 for 6. I like the box as it ensures that the cakes don’t smash together.
Located at 617 Bank Street (near the 417) and open only at 11:00 AM (even on a Saturday) to early evening.
Look what I found – Art-Is-In Bread, the best in Ottawa
Art-Is-In Bread. Who has not tried the garlic bread and found almost whole cloves baked into the bread or had the baquette and not eaten the whole loaf in one sitting? While the bakers and ovens are located behind the Bagel Shop, the bread is sold mostly to restaurants and then some loaves and buns are available at locations such as Lansdown on Sundays, the Ottawa Bagelshop and Deli, The Red Apron and Epicuria. Of course, the Loeb in the Glebe has it as well.
Summertime Beach Humour
Q. What did the pig say at the beach on a hot summer’s day?
A. I’m bacon!
Q. What washes up on very small beaches?
A. Microwaves!
Photo credit: Pigging it. @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/elsie/3701921/
Welcome
My name is Valerie Zinger. I am a Realtor in Ottawa. I look forward to listing your property or helping you find your home.
Phone: 613-859-7759 Click here to contact Valerie by Email at:
OrganiZinger@gmail.com-
