1-24-13 My Memory Cafe Experience

        On January 24th I attended the memory cafe at the Atlas Coffee Mill in Appleton, WI. What a wonderful experience! I am generally a little nervous going into unfamiliar situations, but as soon as I walked in and was greeted by smiling friendly faces any apprehension disappeared. Everyone at the event was super nice and we all talked like close friends. The theme was hats, so we went around the room and told funny stories about the hats we were wearing or made them up. Making up the hat stories was so fun! We would go around the room, each person contributing to the story. What a great way to get a mind working without seeming like work! As others had told me, you really could not tell who had dementia/memory loss and who did not in the group. I also really liked how everyone intermingled and struck up conversations with each other. It was really neat to see the group unfolding from the beginning of the memory cafe to the end. I learned so much from my time there. This was an amazing experience and definitely a ton of fun! I can't wait to go to another one.