Saturday, September 27, the morning of The Walk to End Alzheimer’s was a comedy of errors. Of course I had planned for the walk since before summer, because Lawrence and I have been going on the walk for the past several years, since we learned about it through our experience with Lawrence’s father’s Alzheimer’s disease. The walk is designed to raise money to find cures for all kinds of dementia, and to educated families and those suffering with dementia.

But this year’s walk was the first time we had two young children in tow. I got up at 7:30, at about the same time that my son was walking out the door for a 12 hour work day, and the kids were getting out of bed. My son, their father, turned on cartoons in the family room and all was quiet, so I made a cup of tea before going in to check on them. Big mistake. The two year old had found a box of cookies (my son later said a customer at work had gifted them to him) and there were crumbs everywhere! I picked up the biggest crumbs and took the couch cushions outside to brush off the rest and decided to vacuum out the couch some other time.

Then I brought Nolan into the kitchen/dining area and put him in his high chair to feed him breakfast. There were no clean sippy cups, and since we were short on time, I did not want to take the time to wash one. I gave him a regular cup instead with about a quarter cup of milk in it, and a straw. He likes to ‘cook’ with the food he is given so he proceeded to put bacon and scrambled eggs and cereal into his cup. Then he dropped it on the floor. Milk, eggs, bacon, and cereal all exploded into a mess with a radius of four feet all around his high chair. Out came the mop and a bucket to clean up that mess after I picked up the biggest pieces by hand.

By that time it was 8:30 and the walk registration began at 9:00. I wanted to be there at 9:30, so we needed to leave at 9:00. I rushed to pack a bag for Nolan with a change of clothes, diapers, wipes, a bottle, snacks…the usual ‘to go’ stuff when one has a baby. After that I opened the garage door to load the two strollers we planned to bring. Jack hates to walk, even though he is six and perfectly capable. Lawrence helped me.

Then I realized the car seat was still in our son’s car! He works 25 minutes away from our house but somehow Lawrence drove there and back in a half hour. While he was gone I cleaned out the inside of the van, which was something I had been meaning to do. Carting kids really does dirty a car quickly! Jack helped some but mostly he played with Nolan while I cleaned, which meant I had to keep a third eye out. Jack can’t be trusted to play well with Nolan.

We made it to the walk on time by parking a few blocks away and loading the kids into the strollers and walking really fast to the registration tables. One advantage to getting there at the last minute was that there was no waiting in line to register. We got our t-shirts and we each got a flower on which to write a message or a loved one’s name when the bag pipes began to play and we knew it was time to start the walk.

It was a glorious walk! The sky was a brilliant blue with white, fluffy clouds. It was quite warm, but with no humidity. The rest of the day was good too because we went to the mall for new walking shoes for me and the kids played in the play area. After that we went to a local plant nursery where they had hay rides, face and pumpkin painting, free pumpkins for the kids, food samples and more! I was happy to find a variety of herbs on sale and it was fun to walk around and look at all the beautiful plants and fountains.

Last week I looked at two properties that seemed suitable for the health club for seniors with a commercial real estate agent. As it turned out, one will not be vacant for several months, and the other was too small. But on Friday I was sent a list of nine potential properties, and of those five look promising. So I am going to look at them as soon as possible. As always, I know God’s timing is not our timing, and He knows what is good for us better than we do.

Remember to wear sunglasses as you are out and about during these bright fall days we are having! Cataracts are not a big deal to remove these days, but my opthamologist warned that other conditions may be caused by too much UV light exposure, and there may be no cures for those. http://www.geteyesmart.org

May you and yours be blessed this week!

DG