WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR AUGUST 2105

barbiecat wrote: »

I did my weight training routine again today. It took about 55 minutes. Because I'm doing it at home, I can watch something I recorded on my DVR and use the 30-60 second rests between sets to fold laundry. I added some weight to the lifts I'm doing by wearing 5 pound wrist weights. That will do until the adjustable dumbbells I ordered come in. The new dumbbells will be adjustable up to about 50 pounds on each dumbbell...total 100 pounds for a lift. Since the heaviest I am doing now is 40 pounds, they should be good for a long time.

Barbie from NW Washington

Katla49 wrote: »

Raymax: I don't own a horse but have always wanted one. The horse in the photo is owned by the beach stable that offers beach rides to tourists. The photo was taken on my birthday last year. The lesson horse I ride now is owned by my teacher. At this time in my life, I don't have what it takes to be a responsible horse owner. I've considered leasing down the road. DH has numerous health issues and even a lease would not work for me at this point.

Lagopus wrote: »

Hi all!

I've been gone for a long time but there's a reason for that, as you'll see below. No way have I been able to keep up with the thread. With nearly a thousand unread posts, I probably won't be able to go back through it either so I'll just jump in right here.

Thanks to those of you who've expressed concern about my absence, one way or the other. :flowerforyou:

Just after I wrote about my goals for August, my 90-year-old mother fell while walking up our sloping lawn. She's broken both hips in the past 10 months. In some ways it's a miracle she was walking at all! Both her thighbones now end with titanium implants and the only thing she had left to break was her pelvis. So that's what she broke. We got her into the car and took her to the local hospital. They kept her there for three days, then released her — not back to the summer cottage, but to the retirement community where my parents spend most of their time, and where they have access to all kinds of medical assistance.

While my mother was in the hospital, my father and I had close up the cottage and move him, the two cats and all my parents' STUFF back to their main home. Moving the cats was one of the biggest challenges. They sensed that something was afoot when the boxes for all my father's computer equipment came out of storage. To make matters worse, we'd taken them to the vet just a few days earlier so they were extra wary. One of the cats weighs about 30 lbs and couldn't escape us if he tried, but the other crept to the far end of the closet under the stairs. There she crouched, cosy in the innermost foot-high space, well hidden behind 70 years' worth of stuff someone in my family has looked at and said "Hmm, it might come in handy some day." That and spiderwebs. Still, we managed to locate, capture and cage both cats in less than the half hour we had allotted for the task. The big one yowled throughout the 47-minute drive.

Even before my mother broke her pelvis they had planned to move back home, but that was intended for the weekend, when my sister and her husband could come down and help. There was a lot more stuff to transport than would fit in a single car, so after one night in my parents' apartment, I went back to the cottage with my sister, brother-in-law and niece, and we finished closing up. The fridge had about a week's worth of food in it. Before my mom ended up in the hospital, I had all our meals planned so we wouldn't have leftovers or perishables to worry about when we closed the cottage. Those plans fell through in the chaos and my sister's family and I ate a couple of exceedingly odd meals in an attempt to clean out the fridge.

And how's my mother? She's one tough lady! Despite the broken pelvis, she was up and walking with assistance on the second day. After five days she was dressing and going to the bathroom all by herself. On days 8, 9 and 10 she showed the occupational therapist she could do her own hair, wash dishes, and water the plants and 11 days after the fracture, she was allowed to move from assisted living back to their apartment in the independent living wing. She's in some pain despite taking pain meds four times a day, but she's at home with my father and the cats, absolutely determined to make things work.

All these health and relocation issues took a lot of my time and attention. (Relocation applies not just to my parents, but also to ME! I've flown home to my own "cottage" in northern Norway.) There simply hasn't been time to hang around in front of a computer! I went to New Hampshire fully expecting to gain weight (as I usually do) but hoping at least to keep it in check. Now that I've been reunited with a set of scales I trust, I see I've gained less than one pound. So I'm happy!

Oh, one more thing: an enjoyable side-effect of all our enforced idleness in hospitals and care facilities was that we had extra chances to sing together! My family is all about music and singing; my mother worked as an organist and choir director for over half a century. I'm a soprano, my father's a bass, and my mother has always filled in whatever voice is missing — usually tenor. So when we had nothing to do and nowhere to go, my father brought out the suitcase full of sheet music and we whiled away the time with singing. Staff and other patients gathered shyly outside our door, listening and applauding, but we did it just for ourselves, just for the fun of it.

/Penny, back on the thread, back near the Pole