Funny Book Titles

If you feeling down and in the dumps, maybe try out a few good books...

Here are some lovely options:

Have a lovely Tuesday and feel free to do a book review in the comments :) 

A Big Loss

One of my residents passed away a week or two back...She and her husband shared a room and looked after each other even though they struggled to look after themselves. 
I have been postponing a little to go visit the husband... I feel so sorry for him as I know how lost and alone he must be feeling.  So, I had to get myself together first.  On Tuesday I finally had the courage to go give him my condolences.

The following conversation took place:

OT:  "Hallo Mr G, how are you?"
Mr G:  "I'm terribly upset...just terribly upset"
OT:  "I know Mr G, I am so sorry about your loss"
Mr G:  "So, you've heard then.  Oh, what am I going to do, it's such a big loss"
OT:  "Mr G, I know it doesn't feel like it, but you will be okay..."
Mr G:  "How can you say that, I feel like a mole"
OT:  "Uhm.."
Mr G:  "Please help me look around"
OT:  now really confused:  "What are we looking for?"
Mr G:  "I've lost my glasses...Oh, it's such a terrible terrible loss"

In the end I comforted him about his glasses (which we did eventually find after a day or two), but I know I was comforting him about his wife too...

Inspirational Monday

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky.

Rabindranath Tagore

 
*Could this be true for me?  Guess we will have to wait and see...

New Word of the Week

Fruckles

Quote of the Week

This is from one of my students:

"I will stabilise her mood by talking quickly and slowly to her"

I still haven't quiet figured this one out...

Happy Weekend

What a week.. Had a bit of a rough time at work, but it's Friday and I am looking forward to the weekend for the following reasons:

1.  We have a kermis at our church this afternoon

* Not sure it's going to be quiet as exciting as in this picture...

2.  We are going to see The Artist (first major silent movie in 80 years) tonight with special friends

3.  Golf with the husband and best friends in the Bushveld...

*  Golf doesn't normally excite me, but it is the Bushveld and I was promised that I can race around on a golf cart... (it's been a while since my semi-speeding-golf-cart-accident a year and a half ago)

4.  Time spent with my wacky and random, but oh-so-special friends from the old Rustenburg Gang (even though it is most unfortunate that everybody cannot be there)

 *  To read more about our wacky and random times together see my friend's post on our crazy weekend at One Inappropriate Weekend.


Have a wonderful weekend ful of rest and a tad bit of wackiness when with good friends...

And always remember: 

"No matter how good you are at something, there's always about a million people better than you"
Homer Simpson

Same goes for when you are really bad at something I guess :)

Happy Weekend

I'm sooooooooo glad it is Friday :)

Black Comedy

AWB oldies

We have an old (very smart) lady with Alzheimer's at our frail care centre. Her husband was a minister in the parliament and she is what we would call in Afrikaans:  "'n Stoere Boere Tannie".

The following conversation took place between her and a caregiver one day:

Caregiver:  "Hallo Mrs S"
AWB Tannie:  "You!" (pointing her finger at the caregiver in a very serious matter)
Caregiver:  "Gulp"
AWB Tannie:  "Do you want to get hit today or tomorrow?"
Caregiver:  thinking carefully  "Tomorrow please Mrs S"
AWB Tannie:  "Today is your lucky day..."  mutters to herself while walking away

 *Image source

Who am I?

OT:  "Hallo, it's so nice to meet you.  What is your name?"
New Resident:  "My name is Lorraine, but you can call me Yvonne"
OT:  "Uhm, okay..."

Home Sweet Home

I have really been enjoying making our house pretty.  Whether it is stylish or fashionable enough for the standards out there in the real world, doesn't matter to me.  What matters is that we look forward to going to OUR home every day after work.  (I try to ignore the fact that I have a kitchen so green that you are almost blinded every time you walk in there and focus on all the space I've got to cook and bake)

We are just hiring for a year or so in order to figure out where we want to stay and where we will be in 2 years time (becuase a lot can change in 2 years) before we buy a place.  This puts a big limit on your decoration ideas as you cannot really go wild with painting and wallpaper etc. 

But thanks to Tanya who is blogging over at Sticky Notes I discovered these awesome wall stickers from a South African company based in Centurion.  We ordered the dandelion and last night Jaco and I worked together as a team (here and there argueing a bit over what goes where) and we decorated our bedroom.  I absolutely love it :)  Thanks again Tanya...

It was really easy to apply and it is removable and does not damage your paint.  I can definately recommend it to anyone...

Happy Tuesday

Today is a happy Tuesday.  For no particular reason.  I got up at 5, so I am actually really tired, I had to postpone a staff support group, because I wasn't prepared and normally this would upset me a lot.  But today I just feel happy.  I went on an inspiring Alzheimer's course, I have a church course again tonight, which I am really enjoying and which is teaching me to cross some boundaries (although it also makes me realise that I have crossed several boundaries already).  I'm also feeling really blessed with a wonderful husband and wonderful friends.

So Happy Tuesday everyone :)  Have a good one...

OT Fun

So I've promised to start posting recipes.  And my chocolate/sweet-potatoe cake recipe will come soon, but I thought I will share another recipe that OT's all around will enjoy and hopefully put to good use.

If you work in a frail care centre like myself, you would have made use of the wonderful benefits of clay/play-dough.  For the more higher functioning people there is hands therapy which you can do to keep those stiff joints in their fingers mobile, so that they can KNIT KNIT KNIT.  For the more explorative people there is the fun of making the play dough together, making a variety of objects from your play dough/clay and baking it in order to have a product to take home.  And for the very low functioning people, it is still a very nice sensory tool, especially for tactile stimultation.  Or you can use it when massaging your resident and it gives some nice proprioceptive input.  Obviously there are other benefits of clay in the other fields of practise especially in peadiatrics.  But I am sure the one problem everybody has had in some or other way and especially in lower functioning people is that they tend to eat the clay.  And even though I am sure that it won't do any permanent harm, I don't think iit's such a good idea. 

So, today I went on a course on sensory stimulating activities with elderly people and we received this awesome recipe for play dough...which I am definately making next week with my oldies.  It is 100% edible, got a lovely smell and is very texturised.  So it is a multi-sensory tool even before really doing any activity with it.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients: 

• 540g peanut butter
• 6 tablespoons of honey
• Non-fat dry milk (use own judgment)
• Cocoa (use own judgment) 

Method:

• Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix, adding enough cremora (or milk and flour) to reach the consistency of bread dough. 
• Add cocoa to taste.
• Shape, decorate with other edible treats (100's and 1000's, chocolate chips, jelly sweets etc)
• Explore your wonderful smelling, tasting and feeling play dough  :)

Black Comedy

Mad Weekend

It seems as though my intake of coffee directly results in my output of blogging as I have been very quiet since I've stopped drinking coffee.  But I will try to be more active again if it is possible without my normal caffeine overload.

I am going to my favourite place in the world for the weekend (see photo below) ...And I am planning to be very mad as usual when I am amongst my fellow mad people of the famous Nut House.

So for this weekend I wish you a Mad Weekend...

• Wear crazy make-up
• Wear something extremely colourful with your normal outfit
• Drink some wine untill you feel mad/or a little less mad
• Do things differently (e.g. playing scrabble naked)
• Laugh as much as possible for no reason at all

If you are like me, just be yourself :) 

Mad Hatter: Would you like a little more tea?

Alice: Well, I haven't had any yet, so I can't very well take more.

March Hare: Ah, you mean you can't very well take less.

Mad Hatter: Yes. You can always take more than nothing