Last night was a nightmare.  Not only for me but for mom.  I called the Alzheimer's society and they didn't really have anything very helpful.  Yeah, she kept wanting to go home.  I told her she was home and she agreed but then wanted to go home again.  It was like this for 3 hours.  She was so confused and upset that it was horrible for both of us.  So I called the society and they said to go along with the delusion.  However, if I did that, she would have left the house looking for her house.  So, a bad night all around.  I called Tillie and asked her if she would ask at the home what they do about these things at night.  She is going to look into it for me.  I am grateful for support.  Any one has suggestions, please let me know!

Other than that, things are alright here.  It was book club today!!!!  How fun.  We all loved the book that Maggie picked, "the Christmas Sweater," by Glenn Beck.  It was such a good book.  We are reading "The Other Boleyn Sister" for next month.  I loved that book so much.  The movie was good too.  Katie is going to get it out of the library when she goes to work next and Aggie, I think, may have it.  The other Katie is going to go and buy it, so is Maggie.  I love book club.  It is so much fun.  I was glad both Katie and Katie were able to join us.  Both of them had to work last time.  

I am ready for Christmas except for wrapping and the tree.  I am going to put the tree up tomorrow and wrap the presents too.  Mom and I are going to make candy tomorrow to for Christmas presents for Andrew and Tillie.  Andrew decided after all to go Tillie's for Christmas.  We haven't seen him in about 3 years since he moved to London, Ontario.  It will be nice to see him again.  We will be alone with him for about 3 hours Christmas Day while Tillie goes to see her husband in the home.

I hope you are having a good Christmas season and enjoying all the joys it brings!  Merry Christmas!

I had sewing today!  Finally we are back only to take off 2 more weeks for the holidays.  I don't mind though because when we start again in the new year, all three girls will be starting new outfits.  They are doing so well.  They all have a skirt with a coordinating top to go with it.  I am so proud of them.  Their smaller sister, Sarah, will be starting a skirt with me.  She is to young to use the machine but she can help me with other stuff like pinning and basting, easy things.  She is excited to start.

I finished the ornaments.  Just in time for the concert.  The concert was last night and it went well.  Next on the schedule is the benefit concert and quickly followed by competition.  They are two events in a row.  I figure my students can perform their competition music at the benefit concert.  I have some people already confirmed to perform, I am just waiting for some more.

I hope you are having a good day!

You would think I was torturing Mom this afternoon by making her wash her hair.  Every time we do this it is a trial.  She is afraid of being cold, which I understand, but still, one needs her hair washed and she doesn't do it in the shower so it is done in the back sink.  I now have her wrapped in a blanket with a towel on her head.  In about a 1/2 hour we will go up and blow dry our hair completely dry.  It takes a few hours to get this done.  Thank goodness I don't have much to do these days.  It is just one of those things that you deal with memory loss people.  At least she didn't cry and go on and on this time like she did last time.  I turned the heat up to 78 (it's rather warm in here now) so she wouldn't freeze and we did it fast!  So now she is almost finished with the process.

I have finished the ornaments for tonight.  I just have to fold the programs, and we are all ready!  I can't wait.  I know I have too, but it just isn't arriving so fast as I would like.  I love the concerts, they are so much fun.  I love watching the kids perform, they get so proud of themselves when they play or sing well, the smiles are unbeatable!

I ordered girl scout cookies today.  I will be ordering some from Rachel and Rebecca too, Mom loves girl scout cookies and they freeze beautifully so I am ordering a few for her.  At least she will eat a few at a time of those.  The other cookies she will eat occasionally, so I don't buy them any more.  No point as they usually end up in my tummy and goodness knows I don't need them!  I need to lose weight and lower my cholesterol not raise the stuff!

It's a decent day, I started a new medicine today, celebrex, so I shall see how it goes.  I hope it works, the arthritis is just as bad as the fibromyalgia.  My head is sore today, I woke up with a bad headache again this morning but it is almost back to it's regular one!

I hope you are enjoying your day!

I am almost finished reading the new Alzheimer's book.  it has been helpful in some ways and some ways terrifying.  I am not ready for what is coming.  I am not sure anyone could be ready.  Mom moved the front door gate this morning.  She didn't go out, but nothing like having the front door open and the gate moved.  I tightened it tonight so that maybe she won't be able to move it.  She has been a bit calmer this week.  I think this will be her last real Christmas.  We are going to Tillie's for the holiday and I wanted to go to Richard's for New Year's, but that won't happen.  He wants us to come in the summer when the weather is better.  I guess he is right, but I miss those kids!  A lot!

I will finish up my sewing tonight.  I will have the program finished too so I will be ready for the concert tomorrow.  We have 11 students performing, 2 are going to be absent due to school events and most students are doing 2 pieces each except my little one.  She is only doing one song because she was absent for a few weeks and never finished learning the other Christmas song.  I can't believe how much she has grown.  I have known her since they brought her home from Russia at 6 months old.  Now she is 8.

I hope you are having a good day.

I have one student this afternoon.  I can't wait.  Charlie won't be here today because he has a Christmas Concert for his mom's nursery school.  That would be adorable to see.  He is going to play his tenor sax while the little ones sing Jingle Bells.  I hope they tape it so I can see it.  I have to finish my ornaments tonight.  I can't wait!  I love sewing although I haven't been very ambitious lately for new projects.  I have to send the presents to the kids early next week as soon as I finish their ornaments.  

After the new year I will be taking pictures of the violins and be putting them up on eBay.  I don't know how to do this yet, but I will learn.  I also have 4 or 5 cellos that need to be painted and sold.  I hope that I can sell of them for a decent price.  I will post pictures as soon as I take them.  I have about 25 or so violins and violas.

10 days until Christmas!  I am not that excited as I usually am about it.  It is almost like, yeah, whatever.  I haven't pulled the tree out and decorated it yet.  I also haven't wrapped any presents.  Mom doesn't seem that interested right now either.  I know that this is probably one of the last Christmases she will have with some sort of memory.  I anticipate that next Christmas she will probably be completely out of it.  She is sleeping next to me in her chair again.  I am watching Cold Case, it's a rerun but one I haven't seen before.  

Not much happening today, I hope you are having a great day.

Yesterday was a really busy day for us.  I was very glad for that.  We met Debbie after a lesson at Tim Horton's and then we had Gracei's play in the evening.  I almost forgot about the play but fortunately I wrote it in my planner!  Thank God for planners.  Without them I would be lost most days.  Today is also a busier day with 3 more lessons to go.  I love Mondays because they are so busy and I get to see the students.  It brightens my day a lot.  On the days where there is no lessons, life is dull and boring.  Mom is sleeping next to me in her chair as usual.  The gates are working really well and I am able to get some sleep.  I feel like I am making up for months of no sleep because I am sleeping 10 to 12 hours with at least 5 hours straight through at a time.  Yeah!  finally!  sleep!

I am almost done with the ornaments.  I will be done by Thursday since that is when I need them.  I have a few students paragraphs ready for the concert.  I don't have the order yet, I will do that later tonight after dinner.  I think we are going to go and get dinner because I am too tired to cook or even heat up something.  We will have enough money for it, so that is good.  I am not taking any time off from teaching during the holidays, if the students want lessons, I will teach.  it is entirely up to them.  I know that Bob and Charlie are planning to have lessons during the holidays.  I don't know about anyone else.  I will be letting my students know that I am teaching if they want lessons.

Not much else going on.  Just had a lovely time with Debbie and the play was alright.  I will be seeing Debbie at bit more because she is going to sing in the benefit concert in February and wants some help to get ready.  She is planning to come and see my students at the concert on Thursday.  I hope next year I remember to sign up for the hall way earlier than I did so we can have a Sunday afternoon like we usually do.  When I sign up for the spring concert I will sign up for Christmas at the same time.  then it will be done.

I hope you are having a good day too.

Hayley came to pick up her packages this afternoon.  We got about 2 hours with her so I was happy about that.  I can always use more time but I will take what I can get.  I also had one lesson before that.  I worked on the ornaments too.  I am also almost finish with them so I am really happy about that.  I will be finished by Thursday which is the day of the concert.  I will be working on the program tomorrow.  I have one paragraph so far.  I expect more before the concert, or at least I hope I will.  Goodness knows my students don't want me to write the paragraphs for them.  I tend to gush completely crazily.  So, they are going to want to write them themselves.  Speaking of which, I need to face book Lily's dad so I can get her paragraph.  I forgot to get it this afternoon.  Silly me!  There, I messaged him.  She is so adorable and growing so fast.  I can't believe she is going to be 12 already.  Time just flies away from me sometimes.

We are watching Numb3rs.  It is a great show.  It is on late so we have to wait for the DVDs to come out.  We just finished watching season 5.  Apparently, season 6 will be the end.  I am sad about that because it is so fascinating.  I am watching the special features and they are interesting.  Mom is sleeping next to me in her chair again.  Nothing new there.  She does this all the time.  I wish she wouldn't sleep during the day and sleep at night but I guess I won't be getting my wish anytime soon.

I am reading an interesting book about memory loss and the issues that come up with it.  I am about 1/2 through the book now.  Mom wants to read it too.  I don't know what she is going to understand, I know she won't remember what she read, but hey, if she wants to read it, she can.

Pain is medium today, my head has been better through out the day, it started off bad and then improved.  My hips are not so good because of the weather, which I expected.  I also expect my knees to be bad.

I will be visiting with Debbie tomorrow!  Yeah!  I haven't seen her in a few years since she has been in college and going to India.  I am really excited about seeing her after Katie's lesson tomorrow.  I don't know what we will do, but it will be fun!

I hope you have a great evening and a wonderful night!

I was supposed to go for sewing this afternoon, but unfortunately, they had to cancel because of scheduling issues.  I was disappointed but I will see them next week.  I have a bad headache today so it probably was for the best.  I am not my best when my head feels like it will explode.  It is just that I haven't seen the girls for sewing in a month!  It is entirely too long of a time between!  I miss them too much.  I am glad they are healthy again and no more flu.  They had the swine flu (at least we think so because it was such a bad flu) and everyone, including the baby, got it.  I need to get the vaccine for it but right now it is not available at the doctor's office yet.  I hope so soon or at least at a place where I don't have to stand in line because standing is so hard for me.

Other than the headache we are doing alright.  Mom is okay today, she is a bit confused and was freezing this morning.  I told her 3 times to put more clothes on but she just walks around and cries.  It is very frustrating.  It is like she doesn't realize she has clothes to wear and she wakes up so early.  Ridiculously early and expects me to get up too.  Well I don't.  I go back to sleep.  This morning she was hungry and wouldn't go down for breakfast unless I went with her.  So I went down made her cereal and went back to bed.  I am have tried putting the bowl with cereal in it on the table at night for her but she won't eat it.  She is so afraid of bugs and germs and all that type crap.  It is driving me nuts.  Sometimes I just want to scream!  This morning was one of them.

I hope you are having a better day than me!

I went to my friend Heather's house today for a visit.  It was such fun.  I haven't really seen her in years.  Yes, I briefly saw her this summer, but that doesn't count.  We had about an hour to ourselves before her little boy came home and then about 1/2 hour later her daughter arrived.  Both kids are so cute and nice and polite.  She also has two dogs that are very friendly.  They didn't jump up on us at all.  I like that in a dog.  Mom came with me of course.  She did okay until it started getting darker and she started freaking out over the wind.  She flips out over wind so easy.  She really is terrorized by the wind since she has been picked up from it and moved to another place.  It was years ago but to her it was just yesterday.  It is frustrating for me because we have wind a lot, so it's like she is freaking out a lot.  I have learned to keep our drapes shut in the dining room when she is in there because she constantly looks out and flips.  I wasn't ready to leave but she started being whiny and frightened so we left.  She had both hands on her hat when we left, fortunately, we only live about 10 minutes from Heather's house.

She did get a bit confused this morning when I told her we were going to Heather's until I started using the words my friend Heather.  Then she wasn't confused.  She is freezing again, as usual.  I am tired of trying to keep her warm, nothing works so she is on her own.  She puts on her outside coat instead of other warm inside coats so I give up.  Whatever, you want to freeze even more outside, go ahead.  Whatever.

I have to finish my sewing in a few minutes.  I need to have them ready for tomorrow when Hannah, Sarah, and I stuff and finish them.  Lydia and Natalie should be finishing up their tops tomorrow.  I am excited about that.

I don't really like this bitter cold we have because I do ache tons more than usual.

Well, I hope you had a good day, I sure did.

Mom had her blood test and her x-rays this morning.  I had to get up so early to take her.  Ugh.  I am not a morning person, I am not a night person either, I am a day person.   Between the hours of 11 am and 9 pm I am alright, any earlier or later, forget it, I am sleepy.  So her appointment was at 9 am which meant I had to get up at 8 am.  She did pretty okay except she is difficult when she gets up because picking clothes is difficult for her.  I usually pick her stuff, but she wakes me to ask what to wear.  I have to get up (usually super early around 6 ish) to get them for her and then I go back to bed.  I have tried to her to stay in her pajamas until I wake up.  It isn't as if she does anything except wander the house, but she just flips out.  She has no concept of sleep for me anymore.  It kinda really sucks.  Big time!  I am trying to get used to the new schedule but it is hard.  No sleep for me means crabby me which is not good for dealing with Mom.  Also no sleep means tons more pain which is really bad.

She is sleeping in her chair as usual.  I wish she would be awake more during the day maybe she would sleep more in the night, but she is a morning person and always has been.

We woke up to white stuff on the ground.  I guess I am ready for winter.  I have a new pair of sweats coming next week.  (Christmas present from mom)  I will now have 4 pairs.  I love sweats, they are so warm.  I do have nice clothes for when I need them, but I don't most days.

I am planning to sew the ornaments this afternoon after lunch.  Mom will go with me to the other room while I sew my presents.  I have everyone else's finished.  The only things left are the homemade ones!  

It should be an okay type day.  After sewing before Lily's play I may need to take a nap.  We shall see!  Have a great day!

I have finished my Christmas shopping!  yeah!  I am finally done.  Usually I am done by November because December lessons were always iffy and bills needed to be paid so I got in the habit of shopping all year round.  However, after the store, things were a little dicey.  I did get Mom some really cute socks (I hope she wears them) and a new throw blanket for the dining room chair she sits in.  I got her 2 new movies and 1 movie for me (Harry Potter of course!) and the Susan Boyle CD.  She has such a beautiful voice.  She made the world stand up and take notice of her.  I wish I could do the same.  Maybe sometime in the future. 

I have 2 lessons today.  Zach is starting again and he called to tell me he is on his way.  Then Charlie will have his after.  So all in all, a good day.  Mom did well while we went from store to store.  We hit Tim Horton's first (Mom was hungry), then Walmarts, Joann's, Border's, and then the Post Office.  I was disappointed in the selection of planners.  I guess I need to get them in the fall.  I did buy one a few weeks ago but I thought maybe there would be some cuter ones.  I was wrong, so I will keep the one I have.  Mom and I can share it.  She doesn't really need a planner since I keep track of everything for her.  I did buy her a cute calendar for the kitchen.  She saw it in Joann's and asked if she could get it.  Of course I said yes.  She asks for very little.  I am the big shopper of the family.  (well, not like I used to be.  Disability only goes so far and bills do need to be paid.  Teaching helps pay the bills)  I ordered the rest of my present on Saturday so that should be here next week so we are finished with the ordering and buying of presents.  Now I just need to finish sewing the ornaments.  I will do them tomorrow afternoon after Mom's doctor appointment.

I am in a bit more pain because of shopping, but not doing too badly from it.  I am glad I am done and home because the weather is about to turn bad.  I hope this finds you doing really well and having a good day too!