Dear Heloise: My 94-year-old mother is in a nursing home. It is very difficult to visit her, as she doesn’t remember my children. She knows me but nothing about my life, so talking is hard, but I want to spend the time with her.

After seven years I found something we can do. We color. I take each of us a book and we color the same picture. She wants to do it just right because she asks me what color each thing should be. We are having fun and it’s easier to spend time there, as we are doing something. - Doris Carson, Wolflake, Ind.

Dear Heloise: I never knew what to do with all the extra buttons that came with clothes I’ve purchased. I got a piggy bank with a wide enough slot and stuffed the buttons in there.

Now, if and when I lose a button, I go to my piggy bank to find the match. - S.M., Bangor, Maine xxxx?