What I Do at Work

I am loving work.  I love what I do!

Each week I work two full days and two half days planning and doing activities with "ma peeps."  Ma peeps = my old people/my favorite seniors/the residents. The first activity each day is called "Wake Up With Karin."  For 30-45 minutes in the morning I greet each resident, ask how they are doing, and do some quiet activity to stimulate their minds like looking at pictures of old movie stars, arranging Dominoes in a line to knock down, or batting a balloon back-and-forth.

*Funny - One morning, one of my favorite ladies and I were flipping through some pictures of old-timey actresses.  We came to this picture and she said "Ohhh . . she must have a headache."  Haha!

After we wake up, we exercise.  On Wednesdays we do Tai Chi (sitting down, of course) and on Thursdays we do Totally Chair Yoga.  It's a blast.  Especially the "Wind Relief Pose" when the lady on the DVD says "This is called the Wind Relief Pose so it's okay if you relieve some wind."  Haha!  It gets me every time.  While we exercise, I walk around and strongly encourage all of the residents to join us.  Sometimes they hate me.  Haha.

To finish up the morning with often have outside entertainment come in.  This could be a lady who plays the guitar and sings, a man that sings karaoke-style, or a man that plays the accordion.  All provide a good time. There is one resident that just loves to dance.  Whenever there is any kind of musical entertainment, she can be counted on to be dancing around the front of the room while holding on to her really heavy purse.  It's awesome.

After lunch, any number of activities could be going on.  

One day each week, a lady comes in to do some dancing with the residents sitting on the couches.  

We play BINGO.  

We do "chores" - washing dishes and folding laundry.  It's fake, but its good for residents to feel useful . . so hey, why not.  

We have sing-a-longs which put me way out of my comfort zone because I have to sing really loud . . but I am learning a lot of new songs!  Songs like Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Ballin' the Jack, My Wild Irish Rose, Shine On Harvest Moon . . etc., etc.  It's a good time.

We do arts and crafts.

We have Book Club - I read them stories from Chicken Soup For the Golden Soul and they love it.  Me too, actually - those are good stories.

We have Cooking Club - basically I do a cooking show for them and then whatever we make, we have for our snack later in the day.  After the first one I did, the residents gave me a hearty round of applause!  If that's not good for my ego, I don't know what is.

We do crossword puzzles as a group.

We play table bowling.

I give hand massages with lavender scented lotion.

There are several outside entertainers that come, usually to play the piano.

Basically, we have a great time!

Two funny things that happened this week:

*We were doing a crossword puzzle and the word was "rear."  I gave them the clue by putting my hand on my rear and saying it's a name for this.  After they guessed it, one resident told me that I have a big rear.  Anything but, thank you very much!

*When I got to work this afternoon the Little League World Series was just beginning.  I turned the volume down, put on some music, and left the room.  When I came back one resident was messing with the TV and the rest of the residents were all up in arms.  Apparently, one lady was trying to tell everyone to leave the volume down and everyone else disagreed.  They wanted to watch (and hear) the game!  I told them I would turn the volume back up, but that in 10 minutes I was going to turn the TV off and it was time for BINGO.  Big mistake on my part.  That sent the room into a commotion and one lady called the lady that wanted the volume to remain down a b*&^%!  I could see in about 10 seconds that we were not going to be playing BINGO this afternoon.  So, I popped a whole bunch of popcorn, passed it out, and we all enjoyed the game! 

Soo . . basically, I love what I do.  It wears me out - that is for sure!!  But it makes me happy and (most of the time) I have so much fun!  What a dream.  :)