Wow, what a fabulous weekend!

Wow, what a fabulous weekend! Our Saturday began at Carl's Jr. for breakfast on our way to the CLUB for a fundraiser. We got there after the day started but found lots of bargains at the "garage sale" portion of the "Country Fair".  My objective for the day was to spend the money I had allocated for the event.  (Their goal was to raise enough money to open one more day per month.  At a cost of $750 per day, that was an aggressive goal.  I'm pretty sure they surpassed their last year high but not sure.)

Gary spent the morning listening to the bands, socializing and getting a cool fish painted on his arm that matched his shirt.

I, on the other hand, hawked the silent auction tables and drove up the bids on many items.  Sure, I overbid on a few....but won lots of cool stuff.  Gary got into it at the end and helped me make sure we won all our bids.

He also spent some time doing the cake walk game.  He bought ten tries and boogied through each walk.  On the last circle, he won choice of a cake.  He chose a yellow cake with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting.  Its been a long time since we had a cake in the house.

We ended up scoring a cool hand-made quilt, an afghan, several gift baskets of soap, kitchen stuff, also a cool purse, two decorative plates, gift certificates to Chili's, Rubios, Brookfields and best of all, a personal tour of the California State Capitol by Assemblyman Ken Cooley.  I fell short of my spending goal by $250.00. 

I guess its pretty sad that my goal in the day was financial and Gary's was to have fun....well, I had fun too!  Erica and Ethan showed up and scored some great auction items last minute.


Next, we went to the salon to get my hair done.  Gary went with me and I gave him a credit card to go to Orchard Supply and Target.  He found his way to both stores and a coffee shop. He came back to the salon twice and seemed to have complete clarity.  He didn't buy anything.  For those who have followed the blog, not spending money on unwanted items is a new evolution!

We went back to Target and bought cards for Samantha's birthday and graduation.  No drama, no repetition, no issues with anything.  Praise God!

After a great dinner, we had some cake and watched television. I slept like a baby.

Sunday morning came and Gary got up early to make coffee and breakfast.  We had waffles and bacon and then readied for church. Going to church is always a joy but today, for some special reason, it was spectacular.  From the first note, the music was perfect.  Upbeat and full of praise!  It seemed as if everyone was SO excited to be there and praising the Lord!  The pastor's message was on discipleship and love.  I felt that love in that room was unbridled.

If you don't go to church or have a relationship with Christ, I pray that you find him.  He helps the stress melt away.....I hope I can remember that on days when I feel overwhelmed. Savior means more than stress reduction.

After lunch we came home and took a nap.  Gary seemed so settled all day. Diva got a great walk and we did some food shopping and had a great dinner of Parmesan encrusted tilapia and basmati rice with a drizzle of peach balsamic.  Yummy.

The only moments of tension all weekend came when Gary revisited the subjects of finding a property to buy to build his retirement center and going back to college.  Multiple times I reminded him that our grant team failed us in raising the $63 million were hired them to and never raised a dime and that I told them of his dementia diagnosis.  He got angry, so I changed the subject.  He seemed to accept it. 

He also frequently requests to go to college.  Many times, Heather and I have explained that he has dementia and probably would not remember much of what he heard.  He gets very angry about this.  Maybe I should let him go, but I am concerned about another failure.....may make his situation worse.

Since these are repeat stressors, I am not too upset.....the rest of the weekend was so positive!

Diva dug up an old piece of rawhide that was nasty....very soggy and nasty.  Gary is trying to dry it out in the oven.....the dog is going to like it....right.

I wanted to write this blog since it was such a good day.  Readers seem to often feast on the negative days...readership goes way up with drama involved and a negative blog post.  Its ok.  We are all human.

I hope there are many more positive days in our future in which to report.  But reality says that my readers will probably be satisfied with the less-than-positive days....it makes better reading.  If anyone benefits from what they learn here, I know that this blog idea came from the Lord.  Thank you!

P.S. If you would like to give a donation to the CLUB, it is a 501c3 and your donation is tax deductible.  There are many who go there are much more reliant on the caregive respite than us.  Please help if you can. 

Mail a donation to:

Cordova Neighborhood Church, the CLUB
10600 Coloma Road
Rancho Cordova, CA 95670