It's hard to believe it will soon be Thanksgiving and Chanukah is soon to follow! We have our plans in place for both holidays and look forward to a great and busy season! For Thanksgiving, we will be serving the traditional turkey and trimmings at noon, with a lighter meal in the evening. Folks who are able, and have family around, often go out on Thanksgiving and this timing seems to work very well. Our Chanukah plans include lighting candles every evening in three different locations, the Garden Dining Room and both floors in the Health Care Center. We have a whole host of community rabbis coming in to light candles with our residents and it is always very festive! We also have our annual Chanukah party on Sunday, December 5 at 2:00 p.m. in the Wilbur and Mary Jean Cohen Religious and Cultural Center. We would love to have you join us!

We had some great programs this week as well. Ray Warren, a community volunteer, came in and led a discussion group on the election results and what they mean. It was a lively discussion. And we had some great outings, including a trip to see Evita at CCM, which got rave reviews from our residents.

On Thursday, at our monthly staff meetings, we had a very special program take place. Called Xtreme Aging, it is a workshop designed to simulate the aging experience for participants. Imagine trying to complete a list of tasks, from sorting pills to wrapping packages to looking up phone numbers in the directory, while wearing glasses that simulate varying vision problems of the elderly and having your fingers taped together to simulate arthritis and other conditions. Imagine having to list some of your important possessions and then to have them taken away. It is a powerful session and really helps grow everyone's understanding.

Renovation is the word of the day, week, month and maybe year! We are just about to begin our major project to expand the rehabilitation service at Cedar Village. Therapy will be moving to a much larger space on the first floor giving them room to better accommodate our inpatients, make room for outpatients and house all of the treatment modalities that they need. After that, we'll be making some changes upstairs in the Health Care Center to create much optimal resident rooms for our skilled residents-more to follow on that front! We're very excited about these improvements and believe strongly that these will benefit our residents, both current and future, as well as the entire Cincinnati community.