WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR JUNE 2020
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Karen in VA and M in OZ: I had my last pill at age 20. They did not sit well with me. DH & I had a big fight over them. He threw the pills into the toilet and I flushed them. We used barrier methods until I passed menopause. I have suggested that for my daughter. I think she had her tubes tied after #3.
Katla in Beautiful NW Oregon
I had my last pill in 2009 when I was diagnosed with DVT ... left leg chalk full of clots, in hospital for 2 weeks, on Warfarin for a year.
HRT would likely help with my hot flashes etc. but I can't take it because of that.
But in 2015 I was diagnosed with precancer of my uterus ... don't know how or if that relates to the pill.
M in Oz1 -
Tracey - You can get special 'outdoor' cushions. I don't know if they would withstand a downpour, but they are designed to be shower proof at least.
Covid chat warningI think each of us has to judge how much 'shielding to do, based on our own health status. It was my opinion, and not a popular one, at the start of all this, that most people should be allowed to carry on as normal and the vulnerable should go into hibernation. Unfortunately, most people would have found that concept hard to understand and we didn't really know enough about the virus to know who was especially vulnerable. Now we do. It's a fact that people are not very good at assessing risk. Nor has our government been very good at informing people of the risk factors. For some reason they have been shilly shallying around the word 'obese', which is one of the biggest risk factors. The 'all in the same boat' approach has kept social cohesion, but it is totally unscientific. When the chief scientific adviser tried to explain all this at the beginning of the outbreak, he was shouted down. People hated the words 'herd immunity'. But he was right. And it would have avoided the catastrophic and much greater damage caused by the economic problems. We now know who is vulnerable, so whatever the powers that be say, we have to take responsibility for our own health, like Lisa says, put on our own seat belts. I am not getting into close contact with loved ones or anyone because I am old and DH is even older and he is a man. I think I would survive, I'm not sure he would. We are not all equal. This concept has been hard to grasp for some people, but the virus is not polite, it does not try to spare people's feelings. Some of us will have to be very, very careful for a very long time. We know who we are.
Love Heather UK xxxxxxxx2 -
Heather:
COVIDI totally agree with everything you say. At 73 I am in the similar position, and although DH is 6 months younger than I am, he does have minor problems (pancreatic/BCMs) which may or may not be affected by COVID, so I plan to continue to avoid close contact with people for quite some time. It’s a price I am willing to pay.
As you say, each of us should accept responsibility for making sure we do what is right for us.
The future is never certain but we should load our own dice as much as we can in our favour, since no one else, least of all our government seems inclined to do it for us.1 -
Tracey: Our holiday rental in Donegal last year had the sort of cushions Heather mentioned. They were covered in a kind of woven nylon, and dried very quickly if they got wet.0
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HeatherI have to admit there is a certain appeal to the approach you suggest. Survival of the fittest, herd immunity, take responsibility for our own health...all of that seems logical & sensible. In actuality, though, Sweden's experiment hasn't proven successful. They do not have herd immunity, and in fact are a long way from achieving it. I believe the last statistics show <8% of Sweden's population is immune, not that much higher than countries with 'suppress the peak' strategies. They sacrificed so many of their elderly and vulnerable citizens for an experiment that did not work. They paid an unimaginable price. I believe we as a society should protect the elderly and vulnerable for as long as it is feasible to do so. If we don't, we are less civilized than chimpanzees, whales, dolphins, and elephants. For herd immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), 50-70% of the population needs to be immune. I think the closest is New York City with 20%. Achieving 50-70% immunity is probably going to require an immunization. The other hope is that the virus will mutate into a less virulent strain, which will do 2 things; boost herd immunity (because fewer people who have had the virus will die), and free up society to go about their business because it will be much less lethal.1
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Karen -The number of deaths in Sweden is at least half in nursing homes etc. That's what I mean by not protecting the vulnerable. That was terrible. They did not follow the science there.We had the same problem with at least a third of our deaths in care homes. That was utter dereliction of duty and some people are suing the government. Quite rightly. Even with Sweden's laiser faire attitude they had half the deaths per population than we did. We did not follow the science and protect the vulnerable. That's partly because we didn't know much at the beginning. Now we do. If you are fat, old, immune compromised, a smoker, diabetic etc etc etc then isolate. The government should have enabled the vulnerable to do that with furlough, stipends etc . Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Love Heather UK xxxxxxxx0 -
Machka I absolutely agree! I’d be happy in stage 1 forever!
RvRita2 -
My sewing setup having an RV. Both tables folding. Wooden one DH made for me and is lighter than the purchased one. More stable too so gets the sewing machine. I made sun blocking curtains for the camper door. My next project is new seat cushions for the dinette starts today.
RvRita being creative5 -
Rita ~ Very nice sewing setup. I gave my Singer sewing machine to my DnL today so she can make son masks when he goes back to work in the restaurant on Monday. My machine was bought in 1970 and it still works.
Tracey ~ Happy Anniversary
Rebecca ~ How far away are you from Seattle? That looks like a scary place right now.
Saw the grand kids this morning and got big hugs. So glad we can see them without too much fear as there have only been 34 deaths from the virus in their county as opposed to over 200 in mine.
Carol in GA1 -
HEATHER and TERRI I totally agree with you
Not Covid related Have been eating sensibly and no alcohol for over a week now and have lost some of the excess weight, broke the 133lb barrier 😀😀 Need to carry on at least another 5 or 6 lbs
Stay safe
Kate UK ❤️5 -
Afternoon ladies
Cooked some chicken thighs and will.mix with some mushrooms for Faith wirh a nice salad for dinner... just got her out of the shower... she is all cleaned up at least for a couple of days.. Alfie passed out on a chair..
Stunner of a weekend 70s no humidity.. but i cant stray to far from here so..
I will be able to go home tomorrow afternoon..3 -
HeatherUK 611 deaths/million; Ireland 345 deaths/million; USA 346 deaths/million; Sweden 480; Denmark 102; Norway 45. Sweden's economy didn't suffer nearly as much as other countries, but look at the difference when comparing Swedish deaths to those in Norway and Denmark, countries whose economies took a much greater hit. What a trade off. I wonder if the Swedish economy would be looking as good if they had bothered to spend some of that money on saving their elderly vulnerable.3
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So Sweden had 75-80% of the deaths per million that the UK had.2
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Machka - I was happy to read the sofa won. Some days you just need that and I think you deserved it.
Lanette - we bought sling style chairs. They were only 33.00 each, will be easily wiped if they get wet and I won’t have to panic about getting cushions covered in time. We have kept the two other chairs and cushions and will use them for spares if we have company.
I’ll post pictures after.
Is the prayer plant the one where you touch the leaves and they come together?
Allie - I’m glad you are earning money doing something you are passionate about.
Barbie - my husband is a gadget man too and I am just not into it. The only gadget he ever bought me I absolutely loved and replaced when I wore it out was a Presto Salad Shooter. I loved that thing and had it for about 17 years when it died. It took a few years to find something similar. My husband and I don’t agree on much when it comes to meals and cooking, when he decided to lose weight under doctors orders earlier this year we had terrible rows about how to eat. I ended up spending most of the grocery money accommodating his wants and not my own. We seem to be in a better rhythm right now thankfully.
Heather - I have been pricing the cushions, cushion covers and even just the material to recover the cushions we have and it would have been cheaper to replace our whole set than do that. Our set is 10 years old and just the cushion covering had worn through. Buying this style was the most economical solution right now. We can have sunny weather all day, downpour for 30 minutes and then be sunny again. I wanted something that could be easily wiped.I have a different perspective on the Covid situation and the elderly. While I agree and do everything that I can do to keep our elderly safe from this virus I truly believe if I was in their shoes I would rather have my family be able to visit. The mental health of these seniors is as important as their physical health. One lady, 101 who in December was bragging how happy she is because she received frequent visits from her family is now depressed and wants to quit living. The don’t understand why their family isn’t visiting, they don’t care if they are being protected, in their words what is the sense of living longer when we can’t see our loved ones. I agree with them. I believe at those ages family is all you have left. One of our residents had cancer and lived 3 months longer than she was expected but 2 of those months she was all alone, was it worth it? I have given this a lot of thought as to how I want my own care to be handled if I am ever in that situation and I just don’t think the isolation would be worth it to me.
Tracey in Edmonton7 -
These are the new chairs we bought today.
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@Machka I love the kindergarten mask list. they are all so funny and so realistic too.
@Suzi, so many people change furniture so much that (like with clothes and books) there is a glut of used material, and they can't get rid of some of them: transport and storage and disposal has a cost. I was at a meeting with a director in a major museum and we were all stunned to learn that they throw out the showcases (glass and wooden showcases, pedestals, etc. ) from big temporary exhibits. The transport and storage costs are so high. I think some formica furniture is very inexpensive new (I see 6ft high bookshelves for 29 euros yesterday at Ikea) that the second hand cost (usually about 1/4 the price or so) would be so low that it wouldn't justify the storage, and choices have to be made.. I live in a big city on a busy street street with many people walking by and shopping, and so put things on the street just like that (not notifying bulk collection sometimes) and most of the time furniture in good shape gets taken (but not 100% of time). It's true I never see formica in the 2nd hand furniture shops around here. Probably the same issue. But it is a pain to have to move it. do you have any neighbourhood options of helper teens or something? There is also Craig's list. I think it still exists. I have sold furniture for a song or gotten pretty glasses for free on Craig's list. if you put it up for "free" on a website you might get a taker. There is just the security question of having an unknown person come to your home when you are alone. Do you have one of those furniture mover thingies or could you borrow one. I bought a wonderful file cabinet from a neighbour for 25 euros (very good price for the quality and size) and was able to borrow one of those mover things (with wheels) from a very nearby DIY shop who has a policy of lending tools for free 2x a year. On facebook there are many neighbourhood groups too...
DESKS nice to see your desks. Machka you have many screens. mine are all working so so so sometimes I have 3 screens on my desk: 2 laptops and one external screen.
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@Heather, That casserole looks beautiful and delicious!0
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@Karen,I am so sorry about all those family losses.
to you.
@Terri and @Heather: we had pogo sticks, hoola hoops and bongo boards: the trends of the time. My brother could do unicycle too, but the rest of us no. Skate boards became trendy when I was an adult and I just couldn't get the hang of it. Hoola hoop was a breeze. we could do it with ease and forever. I was surprised when I tried it some years ago how hard it was!0 -
@Machka that makes sense that flu rates are down. I got what seemed to be food poisoning or stomach flu mid lockdown and I had no idea how I got it. Surely from food shopping or the then weekly bakery good. I was not in contact and being really careful washing everything changing etc, but impossible to be 100% (no control over bakery goods treatment, whom might have breathed on fresh bakery goods, or fresh berries (berry pickers) that I very occasionally ate.
@Suzi, oh ! I see you got rid of your bureau!0 -
BIKES and ROLLERSKATES, we spent a LOT of time on bikes and some on roller-skates. It was not great roller-skate terrain (too hilly gravelly, but we would go to the rink regularly when I was about 10 or 11. It was a thing. I was reasonably good at it (nothing special) but never very good at iceskating. I have had a few not very serious bicycle accidents. Most notable was when riding bicycle down the 5 steps of the front steps in front of the house. I ended up in the bushes. no pain but my elbow was disjointed and stuck in bent position for 2 days. still now it has a very slight bend just a few degrees that I could always feel if I had to carry a bunch of groceries a good distance in bags with handles. And when I was just off training wheels (at 5) I was with my older siblings and their friends on a group bicycle trip around the "block", including a big descent. I wasn't up to managing the descent and had a big loss of control, (and falling) that I still remember well.0
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STILTS: I think I tried them when I was a kid and couldn't get the hang of it.0
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@Machka congratulations on your coursework and test!0
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POOL We had a pool table in the cellar, so I'm decent at pool. Not fantastic, but I can manage acceptably.0
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@Kate I'm sorry about your BIL's funeral. one of my neighbour's mom died (not from COVID) early in lockdown and it was particularly rough for him with current conditions.
@Heather, yes that's one nice thing about the cleaner coming is the cleaning (and or tidying) before the cleaning.
@Barbie, I guess it's less effortful to watch a video about cooking than to cook.
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HAIRCUT Here we are well into phase 2 of deconfinement. shops have been open for a month and outside tables at restaurants and cafés for 11 days. I got my 1st haircut in a very long time this week. I was already running VERY late for a cut before lockdown. Hair considerably shorter than in the past years. I like it. The hairdresser hesitated as she had seen me the one time in my life I had very long hair (waist length) about 2 to 4 years ago (I figured I'd try that once before I was possibly too old for that (hair health or other) just to see how long it could grow. I suppose it could have grown longer but that was plenty for me.0
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COVID AND LOCKDOWN @Lisa I agree more or less with your take on things concerning COVID and lockdown. What I saw also is that the transmission rate has decreased in many places due to social distancing. (if it's less than 1.0 that's good), and that the death rate per case, really seems to have decreased in many places. presumably there is more testing and thus we are aware of more cases. but there are so many possibly hypotheses for all this that I won't bore you by citing all these stats. living alone I felt pretty down being confined even if I went for an hour long walk most days, which most people here did not do. It is said that many people have been traumatised or had mental health issues due to lockdown. (Here people are going to lots of outdoor tables when the weather is ok. This evening, it was very busy in restaurants that eat up the streets and sidewalks with tables.) Many many will have major issues, and mental health issues due to job loss. In France they said, after 2 months of strict lockdown, something like if we don't open up slowly we won't have a country to save, the idea being that the country structure was at risk of complete breakdown if the strict lockdown went on much longer.
We'll see how it goes. Here many hypothesise that it will come back with the cool weather but I see no stats to that effect.
We may have a big meeting on July 2 with masks, sitting in every other seat. I hope so as I'm tired of living largely on a screen.0 -
COVID AND LOCKDOWN In the beginning they knew very little about it. The first few who died here in France were over 60 and all but one over 75. Then we started losing some young healthy people and that's when they quickly implemented generalised lockdown for all. At the time the projected death rate was 3.6 and the contamination rate in france was about 4 (every person contaminated 4 people on average). The death rate seems to be considerably lower, and the contamination rate has decreased about 6 fold in France (to about 0.7 people contaminated per case as of last news). In France we were just a hair behind Italy in both timing and deaths per million, and Italy was doing Triage (choosing who they let die and who they treated). In France we managed to avoid that, but not by much. At the crux of it many dozens of the sick in Paris region and the east of France were being shipped to other regions (west and south west) where the numbers were much more reasonable).
I'm not a supporter of the way the government dealt with things in France (particularly they were not straightforward and were constantly contracting themselves day after day), and I really did not love the lockdown. it is not good for me personally nor professionally, I'd say. but just telling people not to kiss etc, didn't seem to be working.1 -
@Snowflake the chairs look great!0
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@I had to do a ton of paperwork on wed and thurs particularly. I sort of vegged out on Friday and today to compensate. It doesn't make me feel better to veg but there it is.
I think I'm somewhat in the down mood. I saw a psy and she suggested I try meds (something light and low dose).
I tried 2 days but felt like I was in a bubble and slow and could talk but not think really quick on my feet (needed for my work). I asked if she wanted to try another one but she said it might well give the same effect if I had this effect from such a light one, and it wouldn't be a good trade off. it was her idea, so I figure she knows what she's talking about. she seems very competent.
glass of wine alone this evening. I tried to go to outdoor café for glass of wine (after day of vegging I went for an hour long or so stroll), but they had far more people than expected with tables spread way down the sidewalk and after 30 min the 2 waiters still hadn't gotten to some of us, and I figured they never would.
Place in disarray, much ironing to do, and almost no clean dishes left. That is not common for me!
Meeting some friends tomorrow at end of day for a thing, thank goodness.1 -
a weeks worth of reading (skimming) and posting0
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