The Sunshine Award

I’ve been nominated for the Sunshine Award! Thanks to Sally 🙂

The Sunshine Award comes with a few rules:

• Include the award’s logo in a post or on your blog
• Answer some questions about yourself
• Nominate some other fabulous bloggers
• Link your nominees to the post and comment on their blogs, letting them know they have been nominated
• Share the love and link the person who nominated you!

If there were any specific questions to answer, they may have been lost along the way… So like Sally I used google to look up a list of plausible questions. The questions below are from Fun Questions to Get to Know Someone. Here goes:

Love or money? 

Love, of course. I can love a poor person, but money will not make me love someone. Duh!

High salary or job satisfaction?

Both! Having said that, I have discovered that I can stay in difficult jobs quite long as I need the salary. Clichéd as it may seem, working with difficult bosses has been character building.

Which is your most favorite book ever?

I have many favorites! But the book that made the biggest impact this year is Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. It reads like a simple soap, but on deeper analysis, it is profound and so layered; and the truth is simply heartbreaking.

Which is the one television character that you simply adore?

Don’t watch enough tele nowadays. Bill Cosby in the Cosby Family brings back good memories. I liked that he was philosophical while mayhem broke loose around him, and he had Good Values.

What kind of music do you like?

Mainly classical – Chopin, Bach, Brahms, Beethoven. A bit of Queen, and anything Frank Sinatra sings.

Which is your favorite genre of movies? (Comedy/Romance/Suspense/Action/Horror)

I like mystery with action, e.g Indiana Jones, Matrix, Bourne Identity.

What do you do when you feel very sad or depressed?

I take long walks and get away for a while, to process my emotions. And exercise. And talk to friends.

And now for my nominees, in no particular order, and what they all have in common is being the caregiver for someone with dementia, now or in the past:

A Circle in the Path – looking after mom with Lewy-Body dementia, and aging “uncle”

Let’s Talk about Family – good practical advice about coping, whilst caregiver for Dad. 

Belly Button Blues – was caregiver for cousin with dementia

terry1954 – looking after brother with Parkinson’s linked dementia

Not Housebound – looking after granddad who is 101 and has dementia

DaybyDaywiththeBigTerribleA – looking after husband with dementia

MomWHearingLoss – was caregiver for mom who had Alzheimer’s dementia

TDashfield – was caregiver for mom for 14 years

The Dementia Diary – caregiver for father-in-law with early dementia

I have dedicated my award to dementia caregivers, past and present. Thank you all for your support and encouragement. Thank you Sally for your nomination!

The Expensive Haircut

Earlier this year, I decided to treat mom to a nice haircut. She had not had a proper haircut for several months, and was self-colouring her white hair not very successfully.

Anyway, we went to a pretty posh salon and I checked the price, then told the staff she was only there for a cut and colour and nothing extra, and left her there while I ran errands. Unfortunately, when it was time to pay, I discovered they had topped up an extra $30 for a “special treatment”. The stylist looked rather nervous when I asked mom if she had agreed to it, but nevermind.

Now the whole bill was $196, and mom tried to pay for it with the $150 she had in her purse. I think this is one indication of the loss of money sense.

On the way home, mom chatted excitedly about the stylist, where he’s from, how many children he has and how she advised him how to live his life.

That evening, my brother visited and we all admired mom’s new hairstyle. It was extremely expensive, she told him. How much was it? we asked. She thought for a while, and said “Forty dollars!”