60 yrs and up

1…176177178179181

Replies

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,434 Community Helper

    @springlering62, I'm lazy (though I do have some popsicle molds around here someplace). But I'm also lucky: There's a woman - married to the artisan baker whose soft pretzel sticks I'm addicted to - who makes fruit ice pops and sells them at the farmers market. Most market days she has maybe 8 different flavors, and they vary. They're mostly fruit, fruit juice, sometimes even veggies, maybe a little honey, and interesting combinations. I buy one every time I see her. Recent ones include a mango strawberry, mango lemonade, but she also makes a cucumber mojito that I really love (cucumber, lime, mint, I think maybe a tiny bit of salt?). Yum.

    We also have a guy who sells fruit, nut, coconut milk based ice pops and pints. These are a bit more caloric, still something I can fit in, and delicious. Some of them sound frighteningly "good for you", but you have to believe me that they're a hit on taste/texture alone, the included nutritious ingredients are just a happy bonus. He has a web site, so I screen grabbed some info. Believe it or not, that turmeric/ginger pop is amazing, one of my favorites.

    Screenshot 2025-07-13 183707.jpg Screenshot 2025-07-13 183738.jpg

    Source: https://www.davepops.com/

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,907 Member

    pectin. 🤨

    Hadn’t thought of that for homemade ice cream…..


    I prepped a sorbet mix for tomorrow : Orange juice, pineapple, coconut milk powder, and a few maraschino cherries. My husband is obsessed with southern style “ambrosia” at the holidays, and a quick finger lick test indicates this may be a winner as far as he’s concerned.

    Your popsicle guy’s flavors sounds very much like our popsicle guy, who is now an entire company. Many similar flavors.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,434 Community Helper

    Oh, I forgot, @springlering62, there was another popsicle lady before this one. The previous one was more adventurous in using herbs/spices in her pops. That's also fertile territory to explore. Thyme and melon is a great combo, for example. Fresh ginger and almost any fruit. Etc.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,907 Member

    I’m super proud of myself. I gave up all sugar free products after a dietician visit on January 7 pointed out to me I was having waaaaay too many servings per day.

    I needed to use up some cottage cheese and Greek yogurt, which ended up being on the high end of calories for homemade ice cream. So instead of sugar, I put 1/4 serving of sugar free simple syrup in it, along with a large splash of vanilla extract and a vanilla bean scrape.

    It turned out wildly thick and decadent. We made root beer floats with some diet Barqs Mr S had in the fridge.

    First time I’ve had sugar free products (other than my daily B12 tablet) in over six months.

    I can’t saythat coming off it really did anything for inflammation or arthritis, which is why I went cold turkey in the first place, but I honestly didn’t think I could do it. i love my sweets too too much. It was scary going without.

    Been doing a lot of sorbets instead of ice cream. Haven’t been able to find a happy way to sweeten ice cream without resorting to sugar, and with a diabetic in the household, I try to avoid that route.

    If I buy a small bag of sugar (no longer buy the 5 pound!) , it literally lasts at least a couple years now. Ditto for salt. I’ve only bought one canister of Morton’s since we moved here ten years ago, and there’s still enough left for a few more months.

    I have my small stash of truffle salt, but even feeling like I gorge on it when he’s not looking, a tiny jar lasts two or three years.

    I’ve discovered sweetening a lot of foods with apple sauce, and, of course, my beloved all purpose sweet fruit balsamics.

    The ice cream has been too tangy with Greek yogurt. I need to go back to making homemade skyr. All the creaminess, very little of the tart. But after setting the oven on fire making yogurt, and still -weeks and weeks later- cleaning up fire extinguisher scum off shelves and floor, I find myself strangely reluctant. 😂😇

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,434 Community Helper

    @springlering62 , I think it would still cause issues for your guy, but maybe for you: A thing I've done in the past was to keep a can of frozen apple juice concentrate in the freezer to use as a sweetener. If our food products we make at home had labels, that would count as an added sugar, though. Other natural caloric sweeteners would include date sugar - just dry chopped-fine dates, basically - but that might look funny in ice cream unless well blended . . . though I guess vanilla bean ice cream has black specks and we're OK with that.

  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,737 Member
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 14,890 Member

    I bet a bagel you don't log your cumin anymore….

    Congratulations on ten good years!

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,907 Member

    We are on holiday, and the food here is outstanding, lots of oil, and we’ve been seriously indulging in trying sweets, especially local ones.

    Last night I had a giant platter of grilled vegetables and a grilled soft cheese. (I expected halloumi, it wasn’t. 😢)


    We followed up with a visit to another restaurant famed for its desserts. I had the house hot chocolate, which is to die for) and a massive slice of coconut banana almond cake. I couldn’t finish it. I literally ate so much my stomach hurt. I haven’t done that since I can remember.

    Even with all the cakes, hot chocolate, tarts, fancy coffees and sampling local “dulce tipico”, a quick tally shows I’m only over 3800 calories for the trip. I looked up one dulce and nearly fell out of my chair when I realized a sugared orange I’d just gomped down on called for half a pound of sugar per orange. Holy cats!!!!! I never ate the other half after looking that one up.

    I am soooo ready to get back to salads (not safe here) and oil free cooking (I bet I’ve eaten more oils this week than in the past six months).

    But it has been awfully nice to have the break, and to realize, I just don’t need (or want!) this stuff in my life every day. And to also realize how much I miss my greens.

    BTW, Mr S says he’s ready to come back to the light of weight loss again when we get home. We’ll see if he really means it. He did so well when he was workin’ MFP. I may revive that thread, lol.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,907 Member
    IMG_6830.jpeg

    In my flipping dreams.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,907 Member

    I am utterly amused that security took my two extra crochet hooks for fear I could use my ninja skills to comandeer a plane with them. Yet, they totally ignored the one in my tiny purse. 🤦🏻‍♀️


    my weapon of choice:

    IMG_6838.jpeg

    And holy cats, we just got upgraded to First Class. I’m so excited!!!! That’s never happened before. 😇😇😇

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,907 Member

    booyah!

    When you get home from a carefully logged ten day I Ate Everything I Wanted To trip, aren’t up a single ounce (even with cabin pressure?!!!!😮), have just enough cottage cheese left in the fridge to eke out a meal and a snack til you can shop, your replacement tracker arrived safely a day early and without having to hang around to sign for it, and then you prelog your day and it’s right smack on goal!

    IMG_6841.png

    ok let me get off my *kitten*. The dog has ten days of marking territory to catch up on!

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,907 Member

    oh, Ann, that’s great news about your biopsy!

    Maybe instead of ADD it’s HHS. Hard headed syndrome for all the stuff you’ve put your noggin through in the past year!

    Back from Guatemala last night, sans 2 of 3 hooks. They’re only a dollar or so a pop, but are getting harder to find, especially as crafts stores fall by the wayside. I thought people got crafty during the pandemic. Did it not stick?

    I picked up several large spools of brightly colored cotton thread there I can’t wait to play with, plus gathered the nerve to ask bead and weaving artisans whose work I admired if they’d consider giving me classes. Several agreed, and shared WhatsApp numbers, so I’m hoping to go back.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,434 Community Helper

    @springlering62 - the classes option sounds really fun! Classes or no, please do keep sharing your projects here. You do such interesting things.

    I feel like the overall world not only does less of such handwork anymore, but also that the chosen work on average gets bigger and quicker. I'm talking about things like the yarns with a thread diameter like rope, or new-sew afghans made by tying together sheets of fleece fabric.

    I'm not saying there's anything wrong with doing those if a person wants to or has fun - that's all good. I'm more lamenting the increasing difficulty of finding supplies and inspirations for things that are a bit slower or more complicated. I'm thankful that we at least have online purchasing options, now that so many crafts stores are closing.

    Some things are harder to buy online, though: That's true for natural material (like stones) I'd use in jewelry making, for example. Photos aren't a good way to evaluate those, vs. seeing them in person, even for items like some specific stone beads that ought to be more like a commodity item. Photos and descriptions can lie!

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,434 Community Helper

    P.S. I'm pretty sure some of the ADD effect is from sleep problems, as is some of the over-eating impulse.

    I can't recall if I've whined about it here - though I know I've whined about lots of stuff recently - but I have sleep apnea, and my CPAP broke. It runs, but it makes noises like a cartoon European emergency vehicle . . . a sort of "eeeeee - ahhhhh" alternation of high pitched sounds on the inhale/exhale. I can't sleep through that. 😬

    For - I dunno - 5 or 6 weeks now, I been trapped in one of those US health care vortexes where my medical supplies company, my doctor's office, my insurer, and Medicare are throwing what feel like roadblocks into the process, then not communicating with me or each other. Most recently, Medicare seems to need current documentation that I "use and benefit" from a CPAP that I've used like religion and benefitted from for more than 20 years, and that - no surprise - I don't regularly talk with my PCP about because it's totally routine and not an issue. Until the (bleep) machine breaks.

    So one possibility is that I'll have to schedule a PCP visit just to talk about that and have recent-visit doctor notes to document. Several weeks to get an appointment, then 2 weeks or more to get the device delivered once documented? And maybe the doctor's office - for the 3rd time in this specific situation - won't forward the notes to the medical supplies company until I repeat nag them? Arrgh.

    Apologies for more whining.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,907 Member

    my husband uses a CPAP and has for 25 years or so.

    You talk about using it religiously. I always joke that his is a religion with him.

    I tried one for several months when I was at my highest weight, but with the volatile GeRD, and the constant tossing and turning and somehow getting wrapped in the hose, I was too tense to sleep.

    If aomeone took my husband’s CPAP, he’d turn into Mr Hyde.

    You thought I’d have given the man an offering plate full of gold, when I gave him mine as a backup.

    My condolences on your - hopefully very temporary -loss.

  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 14,890 Member

    @springlering62 - as I understood, knitting needles were allowed on planes the whole time the other restrictions were in place. Moustache scissors? Nope. Knitting needles? Yep. It wasn't, I think, because they couldn't be used as weapons; it was, I think, because you don't mess around with people who knit!

    @AnnPT77 - logging on auto-pilot is a GOOD thing if you ask me. I use scrap paper too. I keep a couple pens by my scale, but I also almost always have one in a pocket.

  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,680 Member

    @annPT77 : Maybe you've thought this through. The cost of a CPAP on the open market is <$1k. If you want or need one, and your insurance company is delaying, why not just buy the thing yourself? I was sorely tempted to do that when I was considering getting one. The whole rigmarole of getting it through insurance was just plain silly and took forever. I have another friend who dropped using one because, when his died, it was so darned hard to get another, so he just gave up!

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,434 Community Helper
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48707859#Comment_48707859

    I've considered that. Why have I not done it? This will be my 3rd or 4th machine in the 20+ years I've needed a CPAP. Replacement has never been a problem. Each time I've taken a step in this process this time - requested documentation, asked for help, etc. - I've thought it was going to be sorted very soon, as soon as that piece got handled. But no. Stuff just keeps happening.

    I'm getting to that point, yeah. I can afford it if I have to, yeah.

    It isn't my insurance company, BTW. They've made very clear to me that they have approved/will approve all aspects of this. Their helpline rep even spent like 45 minutes in a group call with the medical supplies company trying to figure out the sticking point, most of it spent on hold as we waiting for the call to be transferred from one queue to another. The biggest calendar delay - as far as I can tell - has been my doctor's office clerical staff not supplying requested documents to some other party until I message them through the portal and "remind" them. They tell me they'll do it, then don't; then I check on progress, find that they didn't, and "remind".

    I think the problem now is either my doctor's office or Medicare, but it isn't clear. Most recently, one person at the medical supplies company said that since they have a prescription, they may be able to give me a loaner . . . which would actually be my new machine, to be confirmed as mine once the bureaucracy gets sorted. I'm going to follow that one up ASAP.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,907 Member
    edited July 30

    if it’s any comfort, my daughter constantly tells me how wonderful German healthcare is and how she doesn’t have to pay for anything, and in the next breath complains to me it takes six months to get an appointment in the specialty she needs- even though her medication will run out in four and she has to be seen to get it refilled.

    Oh, and even though a specialist has a practice literally within a hundred yards of her home, she has to travel 50 miles to see one, which requires taking an entire day off work by train and bus.

    I just smile and nod politely.

    I’ve learnt not to say anything.

    Mom wisdom. But it came very late in life. 😬

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,434 Community Helper
    edited July 31

    Yeah, in general I'm one of the lucky people in our system: Decent insurance, affordable, etc.

    I know everyone's not as lucky here; and I also know that there's a lot of "grass greener on the other side of the fence" when other lucky-like-me USA-ians talk about other countries' health systems.

    From listening to folks from other countries - I live literally down the street from a major research university with a large international contingent, so interact with lots of international folks, and worked there for 30 years - I know that other systems have some serious down-sides, too.

    Right now, a small part of the grass in my immediate health care neighborhood is a little brown and crunchy so I'm whining excessively about that, but most of my grass is solidly green and thriving. I've incurred literally tens of thousands of as-billed health care costs in the past 12 months (ICU stay and more), and had to pay only the tiniest fraction. Like I said, I'm lucky and I know it.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,907 Member

    Hi. My name is Spring, and I have a throw pillow problem.

    I knew it was a problem, but didn’t realize how out of hand it was still I started doing a post-vacation deep clean and moving things around. Every bed and chair and sofa in the house is multi-pillows deep, and there’s more in the closets, along with about a dozen afghans, and enough doilies to outfit a senior highrise. Beaded runners, tablecloths, and “towels” to drape religious icons, and for every holiday including some we don’t celebrate Because, they were pretty.

    It’s like Tribbles. Closets are all Fibber McGee and drawers won’t close

    Is there a 12-step program for crafters? An MFP for needlepoint?

    If I don’t keep my hands busy, they’ll just be forking food into my mouth. 😭

  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,680 Member

    @springlering62 : I have the same problem in a number of categories. Bike gadgets, tools in general, hardware of all sorts, backpacks (I have 5). It's the human condition that we love our possessions! We are the hoarders of the natural world and there are no others that can match us!

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,907 Member

    I’m gritting my teeth and getting rid of some needlepoint I bought. I’ll keep the ones I made


    Part of me is like “but, but, but…..they’re beautiful and they cost money!” but the Marie Kondo part of me says “thank the damn things and be rid of them. You’ve had them ten and twenty years. You’ve gotten your moneys worth out of them!”

    But then there’s a part of me that whispers “keeeeeeeep them….you did see that awesome armchair on Etsy made out of a patchwork of vintage needlepoint!”

    but all those doilies. OMG. What does one do with elaborate doilies? No one wants to be gifted them, either. But they’re so satisfying and mathematical to make!

    And @Jthanmyfitnesspal funny you mention backpacks. Just yesterday, as I was eyeing my closet for a quick run though of things that could potentially go, I spied a stack of nice quality backpacks I bought on clearance at least twenty years ago. Never used. Mental note to go back and cull them for goodwill this weekend.

    I swear before the living heavens, this morning my husband bounced out of my closet, crowing “wow!!! I just found this great backpack and it’s perfect for my overnight trip tonight.”

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,434 Community Helper

    I hate Marie Kondo (the concept/celebrity, not the actual human) with a horrible fiery passion. Mealy-mouthed, self-satisfied, moralistic little git. Don't flippin' tell me I need to be happy doing what makes you happy, Marie Kondo, then decorate that idea with wreaths of chirpy virtue-signaling.

    One thing to do with doilies is to applique them onto fabric, and assemble into a quilt. That can be quite beautiful, and as a bonus it adds more busy-fingers work to the scenario. 😉 Have you considered making edgings or insertions rather than doilies? They can be equally mathematical - especially some of the vintage patterns - maybe just as satisfying, and more diversely useful.

    One of my downfalls (among many) as a horder is tote bags. They get handed out for free in a lot of contexts, including about a zillion of them I got at IT conferences during my career. I definitely should throw out some of those, but I actually do paw through them and use different ones at different times.

    I have a whole bunch of tablecloths, too, not necessarily fancy ones. They were popular during the 1950s or thereabouts so I inherited some from mom, grandma, mother-in-law; plus I bought some myself because I have a lovely wood dining table my father-in-law restored, and I know myself well enough to know I'm a hazard when I don't cover it. (It comes out for special occasions.) But since I joined the rowing club, my many tablecloths are a boon when we have potlucks. It saves someone from buying disposables, which I'm pretty sure would happen otherwise. Who would've predicted?

    My parents weren't as hoard-y as I am, but I wonder if something epigenetic happened that manifested in me, because they were young adults during the Great Depression.

  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 14,890 Member

    I'm glad I'm not the only one who gristles at the idea that I have to get rid of things to make me happy. Fortunately, some of that bogosity is being re-examined.

    I recently found a use for something I had been holding on to for "too long." It was the PERFECT solution.

    That said, I have a rule for getting "new" shirts at the thrift store. I still wear shirts with buttons because they have a front pocket. That's where I keep a pad and pen. I don't have to put on a costume for work anymore. If I have pants with cargo pockets, I can wear some of my favorite T-shirts, but otherwise I don't know what to do with my pad and pen. So my rule is that I have to ~LOVE~ a shirt in order to bring it home. If a "new" shirt comes home, at least one shirt has to get donated. Sometimes it might be the one that just came home, so I really have to be sure. At some point, they do get threadbare and can be replaced.

    Maybe I'll wear a t-shirt tonight. What shall it be? American Whitewater? Great Willamette River Cleanup? Oregon Coast Aquarium special exhibit? Or just maybe that one with the gorgeous raven on the front. Or the Darlingtonia - no; wait, that's long sleeve.

    Keep the stuff you want to keep!

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,907 Member
    edited August 5

    My “friends requests” is a Gallery of Male Pulchritude. A handsome group of fellas.! And, clearly, honorable ones since they are doctors, pilots, military officers, and guys with cute kids, dogs, even an awesome truck. The only thing I’m lacking is LEO, firefighter, and someone holding up a Harvard law degree. Then my collection would be complete


    I stopped rejecting the requests so I could see if the same faces were showing up.

    I let my husband have a peek, and he was kinda (reassuringly) upset, even though I assured him they were all scam accounts. 😂


    However, that does make me wonder if he’s getting babe requests himself and thinks they are real. 😮

Categories