News From Ami Simms about the AAQI Money From Houston

I contributed to the cause!  This is the one I bought!

And this came in from Ami SImms!

We are over the moon!

During the four and a half days at International Quilt Festival in Houston last week the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative sold 1,597 quilts earning $75,000 for the AAQI.

You can read more about it on our blog:

http://aaqiupdate.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/international-quilt-festival-rocked/

Or, for a quick and condensed version see our official press release:

http://www.alzquilts.org/tiqurabigmot.html

If you are a blogger or wish to share on FaceBook or any other social media, please feel free to snag text and pictures from these two sources.

Thank you for your on-going support of our efforts!

Ami Simms

Founder & Executive Director, Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative
More than $855,000 raised for Alzheimer's research since January 2006. Help us make a difference...one quilt at a time.

Got this from Ami Simms at AAQI

I have three small quilts in the AAQI auction right now.  7145, 7145 and 7184.  They are individually dedicated to my mom, my Aunt Edith and Ann's Aunt Millie.  Three wonderfully old women who had Alzhimer's Disease.  My mom still is battling it, but losing ground each day. 

As you know, the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative auctions small quilts during the first 10 days of each month. Well, our August online quilt auction will be a "hum dinger." We're going to be auctioning off 20 quilts from the first traveling exhibit, "Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece." The selection includes quilts by Diane Gaudynski, Sue Nickels, Mary Stori, Marsha McCloskey, Nancy Brenan Daniel, Melody Crust, Mary Stori, Elsie Campbell, Debbie Bowles and others. Please see our home page for details: http://www.alzquilts.org/


This will take you to the page for the Quilt Auction:

http://www.alzquilts.org/quiltauction.html

This site is to the auction hosts to bid on August 1st:

http://www.benefitbidding.com/listings/categories/index.cfm?category=965774286

If you can think of any other way to promote this very special auction have at it: web page, FaceBook, guild newsletter, other online groups you belong to....it's all good.

Again, thank you for helping us make a difference, one quilt at a time.....or in this particular case, one blog at a time.

Ami : )
Founder & Executive Director, Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

More than $552,000 raised for Alzheimer's research since January 2006. Help us make a difference...one quilt at a time.

Never take an Alzheimer Person to a Raffle

Today was an opportunity for me to spend some time with my mom and for her to spend some time away from Lake Sherwood.  And Frank even wanted to go!  Surprise, surprise!  We picked her up and headed out to eat.  That is always an experience because she doesn't like anything cooked too little or too much; anything too spicy hot or actually having any seasoning at all; anything that has a skin on it, be it animal or vegetable; anything that has any fat on it or tastes like it had fat on it once upon a time; a lot of anything or too little of anything; or anything that is randomly chosen from some memory 60 years ago that happens to still be sitting on a shelf in her mind, shaken loose by the car ride.  So we went to D'Angelo's and I ordered a White Pizza with Roasted Garlic and Spinach and Roma Tomatoes.  Mostly because it was what I wanted and not because it was anything she would ever eat.  Another surprise when she actually liked it!

Then we drove to the CAAWS building where I searched for the Spay/Neuter Certificates I am supposed to be picking up but never found.  Mom enjoyed looking at the dogs waiting for forever homes and petting 12 of the biggest cats I have ever seen in my life in the Cat Room.  We had the run of the Cat Room because the rest of the volunteers are at the Cat Adoption Day at PetsMart trying to find homes for the 16 or so adorable kittens we have in stock.  Yet another surprise came when we actually left there without a new cat. (that is Josie over there in case you are wondering.  Up for adoption!)

Then on to the Fundraiser for a fellow quilter, who happens to be a man, who is undergoing a bad spell with cancer.  Women in the guilds get cancer all the time but no one throws them a fund raiser.  But that is another pet peeve I have.  Anyway. 

We get to the raffle and Frank immediately falls in love with a coral brocade blue jean style jacket bedecked with about 4 gorgeous turquoise necklaces.  It is on the Silent Auction Table.  I am surprised, very surprised.  He wants to bid on it.  So I register for a number and receive #168 which I am to use rather than my name. So we become Mr. and Mrs. 168 for the afternoon.  I show him how to make a bid by writing #168 and the amount just higher than the last person.  He picks it up quickly.  He bids $35.  And proceeds to stand there for the next 2 hours making sure no one bids higher than he does.  I leave him to his devices and mom and I head to the Raffle Room.

The Raffle Room holds treasures you can win by placing a ticket stub with your number on it, 168, into a jar next to the object.  At an appointed time, someone calls END! and they begin picking one ticket out of every jar and that ticket wins the object.  My mother never grasped the concept. 

She was really into several items.  So I happily bought her $10 worth of tickets (10 to be exact), wrote 168 on them all and explained what she needed to do.  Several times.  I walked her though a couple of items and then left her to check on Frank.  He was holding steady at $35. 

Back to mom.  I find her still perusing the tables.  Finally, she comes up to me, super surprise, and proudly presents me with about 35 tickets.  I realize she has TAKEN tickets rather than PLACED tickets.  I have no idea where the tickets came from, so I place the tickets back into some random jars, and beat the devil out of there. 

When the numbers were finally called, I'll bet there were some really surprised people who won things they never bid on!  I hope I made them happy!  My mom was very very happy when we left with her winning item!

Oh, and Frank won his item as well for the $35 he started out with.  And he was so excited, he called Carrie and got her all excited with the surprise.  She can't wait to come to dinner tomorrow to see what he got for her! 

I'd say it was a good day.  Frank was happy.  Mom was happy.  Carrie was happy.  And that makes me happy.

glen

The Laundry Fairies are real, don't cha know

I had a lot of errands to do yesterday, as you read in the last post so I won't rehash.  If you didn't read then just know it was a lot and had some added on to it as the day waxed. (college word, our family likes to point them out for each other.)

So I asked my Alzheimer Mom if she wanted to go with me.  Of course, YES!  So I pick her up.  I was going to pick up her laundry, and bring it back clean tomorrow.  But when I got there the basket was empty.  I asked, Where are your dirty clothes?  She said clearly, I didn't have any dirty clothes.

I tend to get frustrated, but I wasn't there just yet, I just couldn't believe that there were no dirty clothes after 4 days.  (I was incredulous, how's that for a college word?)  So I plunged back in with, What do you do with your clothes you take off every night?  She responds with, I put them in the dirty clothes hamper right there, and points to the empty hamper.

I tried a different approach in a different voice, When you get undressed, where does your dirty underwear go?  In the dirty clothes hamper, she replies, getting a bit outdone with me,  They come in and clean my laundry.  And they bring it back folded.  (which I know is not me because I don't fold her stuff.)

So I walk over and pick up the empty hamper and upend it (crossword puzzle word here), and head over to her dresser because I am pretty sure at this point she is taking them off and putting them back in the drawer, maybe?  I begin to go through her unmentionables, and smell them.  Well, how else do you see if they are clean?  They LOOKED clean, but did they SMELL clean?  That was the question.

But the system failed me because I have a very stopped up head due to the fact that I live in an alien world with pollen that is trying to kill me.  So I just began to dump her unmentionables and unsmellables into the dirty clothes basket.  Well, I needed SOMETHING to take home and wash, didn't I????

When we returned from our errands, I walked her to the lobby to wait for the oldie but goodie film that was being shown in the chapel.  I found the head housekeeper lady, who knows everything about everybody there.  And I asked if her staff was doing my mom's laundry.  I wasn't paying for this particular service but thought maybe they might have been doing it anyway...........as a goodwill gesture........

No, she says, they are not.  So the Director Delores comes over and asks my mom, what happens to your dirty laundry?  My mom says.......they come in very very early every morning and take my laundry and clean it.  Oh? says Delores, It sounds like you have the Laundry Fairies!

To which, my mom turns to me, puts her hands on her hips (looking just like a petulant 3 year old) and says to me with a really smug looking grin on her face:  See!  I told you they were doing my laundry!

The housekeeper had to pick Director Delores up off the floor and together they limped away trying to keep the laughter that wracked their bodies from being noticed by my petulant, smug mother. 

They left me standing there fighting convulsing fits of laughter!

I sure wish the Organization Fairies would come and clean up my sewing room........I promise I wouldn't laugh at them.

glen