What works for you: Keeping yourself happy.

Leakey if you ever get the chance, watch Away From Her, a movie about a woman (Julie Christie) who is in a care facility with Alzheimers, while her very loving husband tries to navigate the emotions of it. It's a lovely film about relationships and Alzheimers.

Leakey, my mom met a nice man in his 90s whose wife has Alz and is in a home. The man visits his wife often and appears only respectful and open to friendships to other people. I did a family history video for another man in his 90's in same situation.
I think both these men and others like them might find a deep satisfaction in being loyal to the end to their wives. They seem to be rooted firmly who they are and not needy in any of the usual ways like younger men. But that's my narrow opinion. I havent' seen otherwise yet, but I am sure the other side of the coin is there. The question is, would you be willing to step into such a relationship?

Does no one ever think of companionship and sex life when your spouse is in a home getting the best Care possible with Alzheimer's

Veronica - I have so much to do around here, not that I enjoy all of it, but enjoy getting it done -no time to pick fluff off blankets or color. Need to make another batch of chutney. I got the urge to a couple of years ago, though I have never made it and hadn't canned in years. I tried different combinations of fruit like lime and nectarine, pears and walnuts and they all were good. Right now I am making beef bone broth - very healthy and nutritious. I have to finish packing up my father's WW1 gear and send it and the rest of the family silver over seas to a nephew. Too much to do always. I have also been doing a little book and record keeping for G and want to take a small business program one of these days. I enjoy that. I help him with presentations, once in a while.Never too late to learn.

Thanks everyone for sharing your joy and what you do. What a nice way to get to know each other better. I had a client I was counting on postphone his work which bummed me out. Took a walk outside, enjoyed the beauty of the Fall colors, the silence, the delicious fresh air filled with leaves, the sounds of nature: wow, totally restored.

Emjo all the activities you describe are the reasons you and i are not sitting in our gerri chairs picking fluff off blankets. Preparing for old age is a lifelong process.
Otherwise you will be sitting in the lounge with all the other residents coloring hopefully within the lines of the pictures kindly provided by the nice OT lady

Walks outside and taking photos really relaxes me. I forget about everything. Cooking does that too. Most of the time I have music on - classical - and, once in a long while, I dance. I play games in the computer - keeps my mind sharp. While I was out of town last week, I found a TV channel with great older movies and watched several. I find a few on the channels here, but not so many. Of course reading and writing on here is therapeutic. I post lots of pics of all sorts on FB and enjoy that process and people's feedback.

I love going to the movies, working in the yard, planting flowers, cooking, and I am with most of you...turning up the tunes. Love to dance, laugh, and I used to sit with my family on cold days and watch movies all day while cooking a one pot meal to enjoy between movies. Since mom has been ill, I have lost all these things I love. Getting back to them without the guilt would be wonderful!

Recently I started doing crafts again at our local senior center. I took mom to one (ceramics) but she found it stressful. I teach pastels as the other craft. It allows me to teach (which was my career and passion) and gets me to express myself. Once a week for 1.5 hours I am drawing and not thinking about anything else. I look forward to both of these activities. So find a place or activity that you can do just for you.

im usually engineering something while im chatting on here or " newsing " around online . next on my list is a root cellar. now i need to engineer it to the least amount of digging / labor , and then engineer the cost down to near nothing . i have enough fill sand out front to almost build poured concrete walls . i can buy damaged bags of cement for cheap in town but tomorrow looks like a total rain out for the purpose of working and i have to figure out how to dig 10 ton of earth out of the bank out back -- in the pouring rain .

Yes it is nice to hear all these wonderful things to do!
Music I have not had around for a while, I am not very digital/technical and all of our other music/equipment is in storage at the moment while renovating! I love blasting music while housecleaning like you sharyn, it makes it tolerable! momma would catch me dancing around and say "geeettttt oonnn dowwwnnn" in her cute little way, I crack up everytime! I suppose I could put a little effort into Pandora or something.( in my spare time, hahahahahahahaha)

And I was just thinking the same thing about the pic's within the hour!
I just had one I wanted someone to see and all I could come up with is to put it in my profile and message them, but it was too much for that little square, cant see it!

How delightful to hear about what you all love to do!
Is there a way of sharing photos or videos here? I guess we can make links right?
I used to make sculpture. I'd love to see ladeeM's work.
Canning is a great way to do something relaxing and useful. Cooking is fun when one has the time. My "mindless" time is reading and writing on this site! :)

Very well put littletonway

I think I find a little bit of myself in all of the above, except the tennis; knees made me give that up about 10 years ago. My Kindle was and is always with me. If I couldn't take a bead project along, I had a bead magazine to wish upon. The Ball automatic jelly/jam maker is a real love. A fabric lover my entire life and always have two or three quilts in the works. I was blessed to have sisters who would come stay on weekends every once in a great while. So we didn't miss out on too much of our travel.

Mom's been gone a year now and I miss her every day. Took a while to get back to what my real life is all about. I know I was where I was meant to be those last 3 years of her life and wouldn't have traded that time for anything!

Those of you with long-tem caregiving have my admiration and respect! You are the angels among us!

Generally I am happiest being active, crafting, gardening, photography in the outdoors, but I must admit since my mom requires much of my time on my days off work as she is in memory care, it is harder to do to these things. So I do simpler things like blasting favorite radio station while I clean the house, sometimes I dance and my Risky Business air guitar (drapes are drawn of course)...the dog thinks I have lost it and barks at me, but it makes me laugh!

Playing tennis, go out lunch or dinner with good friends, go see my daughters, love to play Pac-man(my high score 22500)...my grandson said nobody's playing this type of game!! But it is so fun!! Go lookout around antique shop for just look!! Those list I do in the my 72hrs off days, back to work 96 hrs....English is my second language but read books from kindle.

I set aside time for some mindless activities every day. Video games, tv shows or reading a book. I set aside time to spend with my SO daily as well (I'm in a LDR, and he's in a wildly different timezone, 5 hours ahead of mine). We play games or watch videos together on Skype. I also love to cook (even if both parents are beyond picky about their food), and read quite a few different foodblogs for ideas on new things to try.

veronica,
i totally refound myself while canning this fall .. all those pretty apples will make great trading material too .. already swapped some for some steel tubing .
the doc im working for gave me an endless firewood cutting gig this spring after i completed some stone landscaping for him . hes possibly the most brilliant person ive ever befriended and i know for a fact that he sent me to the forest because he knew the woodcutting was good therapy for me after losing mom and the upheaval of moving back home . so im saying that good , physical , no brainer type work is relaxing for a person too .
and yea i light up some jams every now and then too . if you guys arent aware of it , im telling you now . you can get the proper cable about anywhere to plug into your pc earphone jack and shove it into one of the functions on your home stereo receiver ( ie phono ) and you are suddenly jammin on youtube at 200 watts ..

In the immortal words of Bob Seger --

Still like that old time rock 'n' roll
That kind of music just soothes the soul
I reminisce about the days of old
With that old time rock 'n' roll

Nothing like music to stir the imagination and transport a person from the mundane to a better place. Happy music is a good natural antidepressant. Mellow music is a good sedative. There's music for every mood.

Today mom and I ( she mostly snoozed) tie dyed 3 shirts. Once they dry we will add some bedazzle to them. Probably to that tomorrow. Really need to find other stuff to keep my head from exploding with solitude. 4 months of rain rain more rain and cold will drive me nuttier.

I agree Cap, if I am not accomplishing anything I feel stuck and useless. Seems to me, even though I am taking full time care of mom, that there is something else I can do when she's napping (aside the obvious house crap) something that entertains me and has some sort of skill involved, something that will help later on when things are different?

Hitting level 400 on Candy Crush didn't quite feel accomplishing :/

I enjoy everything to do with crafting and I have tried so many and enjoy the variety and just thinking about new projects. now I am getting to the stage where my body prevents me from doing a lot of things. This summer I have been doing a lot of gardening which is more time consuming now. I also purchased an automatic jam maker and have made a lot of different sorts. have been doing a lot of canning too. everything used to go in the freezer but now I find that we don't use as much food and get a lot of freezer burn so canning makes more sense these days.
i also enjoy going to rummage and garage sales and fixing things up or repurposing. right now I am dreaming about converting a school bus to living space on a minute budget. Given the price of land to park it may have to remain a dream. so many things and so little time. no time for boredom in my retirement.

You are so right cap'n. I love beading! I get lost in all the sparkly stuff then it is 3 in the morning before I know it!! It has been way too long since I did it! I will have to make the time and get some holiday gifts made, since budget is tight this year!

I have my sculpting.... my hands end up having a mind of their own, my mind goes blank and things appear....... a great mental break for me...... I MAKE time to do it.....

i need to be accomplishing something . thats what bout killed me out at moms house . no projects and the constant feeling that i was just camping there .
edna at nh gets agitated and shaky unless they give her work to do . idle time gives a person too much time to dwell on their fears imo ..

My husband and I always try to sit together each day to watch the news, have a glass of wine, and talk. We've actually done this all throughout our 37 years of marriage, but find that now it's even more important to reconnect at the end of the day, even though we spend most days here together.