Explore some of the memorable moments from the 2024 Football Season Kickoff Party at Grace in Fruitland! We had a great time, and you won’t want to miss the photos below.
]]>
Explore some of the memorable moments from the 2024 Football Season Kickoff Party at Grace in Fruitland! We had a great time, and you won’t want to miss the photos below.
The roll out of our new ice cream machine was a hit! The residents of Grace Caldwell Assisted Living are looking forward to regular ice cream socials.
Richard, an amazing resident of our Nampa assisted living community turns 101 this July! We had the privilege of celebrating early by taking him to the Nampa Airport for a private flight. It was a joy spending time with him, his family and our staff on this momentous occasion! Be sure to check out the news on Thursday for coverage of this story.
Everyone here at Grace wishing him a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
The Grace family has the distinct pleasure of caring for the oldest senior in all of Idaho! Naomi was born in 06/06/1915 and turned 108 years old last in June. Naomi is an absolute gem, loved by all. This year she was able to let her hair down for a ride in a convertible sports car and horse carriage!
The entire Grace family wishing Naomi a big Happy Birthday!!
As we embrace the natural process of aging, nurturing our health and vitality becomes increasingly important. At Grace Assisted Living, we are proactive in taking steps to coordinate healthy lifestyle habits. We promote physical well-being, enhance mental acuity, and cultivate a sense of wellness. In this article, we will explore the key strategies for maintaining health and longevity as we navigate life’s journey.
Regular exercise plays a pivotal role in maintaining health and vitality as we age. Engaging in physical activity supports cardiovascular health, muscle strength, flexibility, and reduces the risk of chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis. At Grace Assisted Living, we offer physical therapy, occupational therapy, and daily exercise classes. Furthermore, Grace has a workout gym available for therapy and exercise.
Nourishing our bodies with a well-balanced diet is foundational for a healthy lifestyle. Enjoying a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, proteins, and healthy fats is an important part of a well-balanced diet. The menus at Grace are designed by a registered dietitian with nutrition and taste in mind. We seek to incorporate foods that are wholesome, healthy, and enjoyable. Our bistro is available twenty-four-seven and offers fresh fruits and nutritious snacks for residents to enjoy. Furthermore, Grace is about to take additional steps by offering our residents and staff a full salad bar.
Grace Assisted Living employs Activity Coordinators who are available seven days a week. They organize and facilitate activities that encourage mental acuity and cognitive function, as it is crucial for sustaining wellness. Stimulating our minds through activities like reading, puzzles, learning new skills, or engaging in strategic games is vital in sustaining longevity. Grace’s activities and resources are perfectly suited to meet these needs. In addition to our activities, the facilities, staff, and community assist in fostering and prioritizing social interaction.
Prioritizing quality sleep is vital for overall health and vitality. Grace allows residents to establish a bedtime routine and create comfortable sleep patterns by providing a quiet, restful environment at night, while continuing to assist residents’ needs through our full-time night staff.
Regular check-ups and preventative healthcare measures are important in maintaining health as we age. Grace Assisted Living offers full-time nurses to monitor vital signs and perform medical assessments. Additionally, Grace offers coordination with transportation to healthcare providers when needed. Physicians and nurse practitioners come to the Grace communities to ensure residents stay healthy. Lab and X-ray services are available for convenience. Flu shot clinics are offered on site. Furthermore, Grace Senior Communities also offers pedicures and beauty shops are present at the facilities to offer hair care.
Caring for emotional well-being is just as important as caring for physical health. At Grace Assisted Living, we encourage meaningful connections with loved ones, assist in nurturing positive relationships, and are readily available for support when needed. Moreover, Grace is intentional about encouraging its residents to engage in activities that bring a greater level of longevity and health.
By adopting healthy lifestyle habits, we can proactively enhance our quality of life. Let’s embrace these strategies as lifelong habits and celebrate the journey of life with vitality, fulfillment and joy.
Based on research, we know that 70% of how we age is based on lifestyle choices, not genetics! Healthy choices including regular movement, continued learning, strong social connections and meaningful purpose. Our senior communities have put all enhanced focus for a more healthy lifestyle (whole person wellness). Our activity programs focus on four (4) corner stone activity subtypes; physical, intellectual, social and peace/fulfillment.
All listed resources are credited to Masterpiece.
In this Volume 2 of our “Thoughts on Improving the Quality of Your Life” blog, we will discuss “Physical Dreams”. These ideas are outlined in the book “The Dream Manager” by Mathew Kelly.
As we discussed in Volume 1 of our blog, you can keep a journal with the physical dreams that appeal to you and then check your journal periodically to see if you are making progress in achieving your dreams.
If you want to change your lifestyle, you may need to find a new normal. Sometimes if we keep the same habits, then nothing is likely to change. If we want to age gracefully, we will need to keep active, keep learning, and adopt a healthy lifestyle. Aging is our friend, and we need to constantly adapt and change to keep our life full of adventure.
Ask yourself what physical activities you enjoyed when you were younger. As you have aged, you may have given up some of these activities because they became too difficult. My 90-year-old father that lives in a 55+ community used to be a very good swimmer. He says that he can’t swim the length of the pool anymore, but he still goes to the pool two to three times a week to practice water aerobics with his son-in-law. An 87 year old friend of Linda’s doesn’t feel comfortable riding a two wheel bike anymore, so she got a three wheel bike to ride down to the gym where she also does water aerobics.
Play and have fun with friends that have positive attitudes. This seems like a great way to keep your mind and body active and open the door to meeting new friends. Simple activities like walking, cycling, weight-bearing exercises, stretching, dancing, water aerobics will improve the circulation in our bodies and increase the oxygen circulation to our skin. All Grace senior communities offer exercise classes or other activities that can be great for improving your physical health. Group activities also have the benefit of building relationships with likeminded people that not only improves our mental health but also our physical health.
Even though I can’t snow ski or bike ride like I did when I was in my 40’s, I really get a lot of enjoyment from watching wild YouTube videos of skiing and biking that my nephews send me. It keeps my mind young and I’m sure that I even get some aerobic benefit just watching the videos. Living vicariously through others can be fun.
We each need to make the best effort that we can if we want a quality life. Linda and I were recently listening to an audio book called Age Later by Nir Barzilai and Toni Robino about people that live 100 years and beyond. I expected it to say that people that lived 100+ years either ate the perfect diet, were very physically fit, or just had good genes. Instead, the research showed that there isn’t really one silver bullet that leads to a long life. It was a mix of all kinds of common-sense lifestyle choices and probably a little luck and some good genes that helped them lead a long life. It seems like a common denominator is living your life in relative moderation and engaging with positive people and world around you.
Medical researchers tell us that stress and worry cause more damage to our health than we realize. Regular physical activity, taking naps, and getting adequate sleep are some great ways to combat stress. Stress weakens your immune system causing us to become susceptible to virus and disease that a healthy body would normally be capable of fending off.
It is never too late to make changes. Slowing down is healthy. Take things one at a time. Aging is our friend. It can help us find our identity and purpose. If you stop changing you stop growing. Your attitude can mean the difference between success and failure in your dreams. Never stop learning, make it a lifelong goal.
Take time to practice love Joy, peace, patients, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Never give up! The game is not over yet, stay the course finish well, and go back to the source and pray.
The future is brighter when your attitude is right, you’ll have more energy, your creative level will increase, and you will stay younger.
Linda Hines and John Price
We wanted to explore some of these ideas in this blog. Since we are now at the upper end of what is traditionally considered “Retirement Age” we want to focus on the population that is over 55 years old and might be transitioning to 55 plus communities, retirement communities, assisted living, memory care facilities, and nursing homes. As we advance in age and transition away from a traditional career, or family structure, the changes are really overwhelming.
Retirement, children leaving the nest, grandchildren entering our lives, moving out of the family home, different financial needs, aging bodies along with mental and health issues. There are a lot of changes and we can have a better quality of life if we find ways to actively improve all aspects of our life. Personally, I don’t think the ways that we use to improve the quality of our life as we get older are any different than the ways we have available to us when we are younger. We want to present ideas that work at all stages of life, but we feel that they become more important as we age, since the changes seem to come faster at this stage of life.
Linda and I were recently talking about some of the ideas that are discussed in a book called The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly. The basic idea that I get from the book is to set goals for your life by writing down specific things that you want to achieve. He calls these Dreams. This is a little bit like a Bucket List, but it seems more thoughtful and calculated. It breaks down The Dream List into the following categories that you then customize to your personal situation and desires.
1. Physical
2. Emotional
3. Intellectual
4. Spiritual
5. Psychological
6. Material
7. Professional
8. Financial
9. Creative
10. Adventure
11. Legacy
12. Character
In future blogs we will attempt to tackle each topic and try to come up with some ideas that someone might want to explore. Our goal is to stimulate our own thinking so that we can improve our own quality of life and push ourselves to become the best version of ourselves that we can be. Hopefully some of our thoughts can inspire others to push themselves to constantly improve the quality of their lives as well.
I am more guilty than most people in becoming too comfortable in my daily routines and not proactively trying new things that can help me to interact with other people or help me to appreciate new activities that I have never explored. Every one of us has dreams. It is there that our passion for life is ignited. We should each ask ourselves what our dreams are and if we are living our dreams. It is a question worth considering and a question that we should take the time to ask others that are important to us. Many things worth pursuing don’t cost anything at all. We can certainly value the simple and intangible things in life.
We can take an interest in other people’s dreams too. Encourage them to clarify their dreams and to pursue them. Keep a journal and start writing down your dreams. Dream without limits. Date your dream book as you add dreams. Date them again as you achieve your dreams. When we start to live our own dreams we will then want to know the dreams of the people around us and we will want to help them to live those dreams. Life is about dreams. Something wonderful is about to happen.
]]>More than 800,000 Americans reside in assisted living facilities across the nation. These communities assist with various aspects of everyday living and offer myriad other social benefits.
For many people, entering a senior assisted living facility for the first time may seem overwhelming. It is a big life decision, especially for those who have lived independently most of their lives.
The good news is that, once you know what to expect, you can prepare accordingly. The information below lays out everything you need to do to get ready for the move. It will help ensure that the transition goes as well as possible so that you can begin this new phase of your life stress-free.
The most important thing you can do before moving into an assisted living facility is to find one that is the right fit for you. This includes assessing your personal, social, and medical needs.
There are lots of different types of assisted living homes. From independent senior living communities to skilled nursing facilities, they all offer distinct services and opportunities. Some provide tiered levels of service, while others focus on particular types of care.
The important thing is to have all the information about what any given facility offers. Ensure they will be able to meet your recreational needs. Have a clear picture of what daily life looks like, including meals, housekeeping, and medical assistance.
Once you decide on an assisted living facility, the next thing you can do is put a timeline in place. You should have a move-in date that you worked out with the home. Work backward from there to ensure you meet all your moving goals on time.
This includes things like updating your mailing address and driver’s license. If you are selling your home, discuss with a realtor a prospective timeline for completion. Likewise, ask the facility if there is any leeway on move-in dates, should anything unforeseeable happen.
Also, you may be downsizing your possessions. Be sure to allow time for selling things you don’t want to hang onto and finding a suitable home for those you do not wish to sell.
Making a detailed plan for packing can help cut down on stress, now and when you unpack. Organize packing based on rooms and how readily you need access to certain items.
For instance, ensure that medications and assistive devices are accessible. Pack valuables such as jewelry separately. The same goes for items that have personal significance to you, or anything you would like to access just after arriving.
Once the transition is complete, don’t waste any time making your new space your own. If unpacking is difficult for you, get help from family or friends. A reputable facility will provide staff to help with this as well.
Whether it is a home or a single room in an assisted living facility, decorate according to your tastes. Hang up pictures and furnishings and start a new schedule as soon as possible. This will help you feel more at home and part of your new community.
Now that you know what to expect in a move to an assisted living facility, you can make preparations. With a little bit of forethought and planning, you can make transitioning to this new life adventure stress-free and enjoyable.
Grace Assisted Living is a premier independent, assisted living, and memory care provider in Idaho. We employ only the most experienced and knowledgeable professionals in the senior living industry.
At Grace, our service speaks for itself. We greatly value and deeply care for our residents and strive to provide excellent retirement living and top-quality care at reasonable prices.
Grace was founded in Idaho and, since that time, has been locally owned and operated. Reach out to us today to learn more about our services or to schedule a visit.
]]>