October 4 2013

Another catch-up post. I wrote most/all of this one while I was with her. It just took a month to add the Bingo part and the pictures.

Friday, October 4 1:33pm

When Grandma talked an hour ago about mending the quilt which was sitting on the trash can, I thought she was talking nonsense. But when I picked up the quilt, I discovered threaded needles!

Isn't it wonderful that she's up to her old tricks!

Right now, I'm trying out a brand new (bargain) camp chair, and Grandma is sitting comfortably in a folding chair working on the quilt. We are listening to piano music (link: Piano Portraits). The oxygen machine is softly grinding and puffing across the room. The spool of light blue thread is on the TV table next to her, and she just had me get "one more piece of chocolate." (We had Creamies together earlier.)

The earlier Creamie.

The new camp chair! It's quite comfortable.

Let me tell you about what happened before this point. Yesterday something very special arrived in the mail.

Let me go back further. Grandma couldn't go to the Weber this year. I've been meaning to make a photo book of her family for ages  but haven't gotten all the way through it. A few months ago, I found a Groupon deal for MyPublisher photo books, and snagged 3 of them. With MyPublisher, you write the book and put photos in, and then the company prints the book and sends it to you. I finished a book with Weber pictures a couple of weeks ago and had them sent to Elizabeth's house; so, today I picked them up.

I couldn't wait until her birthday to give it to her! When I walked into the care home, Grandpa was just on his way out. We opened one of the boxes. He *loved* it! He thought it was so neat. Man, it was so exciting. Then I went into Grandma's room. The lights were off, but she stirred and I walked in. Then I got the book out and we looked at it together.

She *loved* it! And the book is dedicated to her, which she really liked. She said things like "You're the first one to write a book for me!" and "I could look at these for hours." Well, Grandma - you can, because it is yours.

The book I gave her is has a cloth green cover; she liked it better than the black cover. Visit her to look at it! I'll send one up to the Weber Cabin as well. (How can I see/get one of these books, you ask? Talk to me. It's a bit pricey but the company has good sales occasionally.)

Well, back with Grandma - one of the aides told us that a Bingo game was going on. She decided to go, and wanted to take the quilt with her! So we played together, and she tried to continue mending, and I think we won/placed twice. There were like 6 other players there, so this wasn't half bad. Below are pictures.