WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR DECEMBER 2018

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  • pipcd34
    pipcd34 Posts: 16,532 Member
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    lhscapil wrote: »
    Pip - you do need to be here. You have DA BOOT! B)

    Lanette
    SW WA State

    Hehehe, that’s right
  • grandmallie
    grandmallie Posts: 9,693 Member
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    awesome there Heather!!! well im getting itchy britches even if I get up there early.. i want to get to the attorneys office.. so away i go
  • Snowflake1968
    Snowflake1968 Posts: 6,732 Member
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    Hugs to you Allie, it will be a tough day for you.

    Well today is my last day at this job, I haven't heard from my VP for 3 weeks now and don't expect to before the day is out. I have had no directives on what to do with my car keys, cell phone, credit card, office keys so I sent an email to him as to where I put them and what I changed the office safe combination to that I put them in. Not even an acknowledgement on that. It will be nice not coming here on Monday, but I'm sure going to miss that gas card! It was quite a little bonus to not have to pay for gas for these 11 months.

    Sunday is the 6th anniversary of my Dad's passing, I am determined to honour his memory with smiles and happy thoughts this year. I have struggled every year with how he looked at the end of his life. Those memories are so hard to erase. This Sunday night to celebrate him my eldest daughter, Grands and I are going to see the CP Holiday train in a neighbouring town. It comes to my town too, but is too late for the Grands. Dad would have loved this! A half hour musical performance, and a train decked out for Christmas in all its glory. I cannot wait! Bonus is it's only supposed to be -1 Celcius! I'm going to invite my youngest daughter too, but she is so busy right now I'm not expecting a yes.

    Tracey in Edmonton
  • PressingPatience
    PressingPatience Posts: 49 Member
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    Skimming through the comments because it's been a couple of days. This thread moves so quickly! I'm sooo tired. Fatigue sucks rocks. >_< Every morning it's like, "Do you want clean hair or clean dishes?" and sometimes I don't have the energy for either. Blah.

    We haven't even set our Christmas tree up yet. Maybe this weekend.

    yski6dqrrad7.jpg

  • ydailey
    ydailey Posts: 516 Member
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    Happy Letter Writing Day!

    "Celebrate the day by getting out some paper and writing a letter to a family member or friend. There are no rules as long as you put your soul into it. As the holidays are coming up, this may be an opportune time to add a letter along with a holiday card you were going to send out. Letters have served as great primary source documents for historians, giving them an opportunity to study how people lived and thought in a particularly time and place. Letters can be inspirational and moving, and can shine a light on someone's humanity."

    Rori - Your Christmas cactus is looking great! Mine usually do well but they don't seem as happy this year. I love seeing everyone's holiday decorations.

    Cari - We Texans are pretty spread out! I'm a Texas native, so I'm used to it. I used to tell our friends from northern places that there's a reason we measure distance in driving time rather than miles here! So happy for you that your son will be with you for Christmas.

    Janet - Oh, I do wish science would come up with a cure for macular degeneration! I'm pretty sure it's in my future too, as Dad had it and Mom's mother was legally blind because of it.

    Katla - I agree with you about remembering our history and honoring those who served. I almost put Pearl Harbor Day at the top of this message but decided in favor of letters... mostly because letter writing reminded me of my Dad's father who served on a submarine in World War I. When Dad sold his house a couple of years ago we found a packet of letters Grandpa had written to his parents while he was in the Navy. I'm so happy I was able to get them transcribed and formatted into large-print PDFs so Dad could read them before he died. It was a look into a different side of Grandpa than any of us had ever known. Timing worked out that the men on that side of the family mostly were the wrong age for World War II, but my mom's side of the family had several WWII veterans and a Gold Star family.

    Heather - That's a really neat coat rack - I like the mirror.

    Tracey - The thing that hit me hardest when we were planning my dad's funeral last year was the photos. We were collecting pictures to run on a screen before and after the service, and it really struck me that we hadn't seen that Dad since my mom died in 2005. He made a brave effort to pick up and move on, but really we lost Dad when we lost Mom. He was never the same, and for the last couple of years he was just tired and sad and ready to go. It was heartbreaking to see my big strong dad that way.


    It's been rainy all day so we've been confined to indoor projects. We didn't really make the kind of progress I'd hoped, but we've got tomorrow too. We've got a hall closet I'm trying to get redone so all that stuff can go back in it. We sort of had too many projects going on at once... the house painters were here so all the stuff from the front porch is in the living room (along with the last boxes from Dad's place). I started that closet awhile back so all the stuff from there is sitting in the hall. I'm taking Christmas week off and one of the things I really want to do is finish some things up so all the stuff can go back where it belongs!

    We're trying to down-size since our plan is for the next place to be much smaller. I've given up finding time to deal with it gracefully, and have decided instead to get everything we don't need in one place and call in an estate agent. I'd rather have it out of here than spend a bunch of time trying to get maximum profit out of our old junk!

    Joy to all...

    -Yvonne in TX
  • evie1958
    evie1958 Posts: 848 Member
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    Yvonne, my dad was the same way after my mom passed, just really lost most of his "get up and go". And I too just got rid of a lot of stuff instead of trying to get max dollars out of it. I posted some stuff on an online garage sale app, and got rid of a lot of it that way, but didn't ask for much money so it mostly went quick. After about a month, anything that was left got donated. I just could not deal with it for much longer than that. I had, of course, already picked out the treasures that I wanted (not really a whole lot other than the china cabinet and some of it's contents). Also gave our son and dil first crack at anything, they took one china cabinet and the upright freezer and some dishes. I'm glad they took the china cabinet, it is a lovely piece of furniture, but mom and dad got it after I left home, so it didn't mean much to me. I kept the one that has been part of the family ever since I can remember.
    Lisa, lovely painting! So glad the exit interview went well for you. I have a tendency to always expect the worst, it almost never happens that way, but....
    Heather, lovely coat rack! Happy to hear that you had a good visit with your cancer friend. Not surprising that you wonder if "this will be the last time I see her". I lost a cousin several years ago, I was very fortunate that I saw her three weeks before she passed. It was just kind of a fluke that I happened to be in the city where she lived and I heard she was in hospital, so I decided to pop up and see her. Didn't stay long, probably only about 20 min, but it it a good memory that I have.
    Tracy, sorry to hear that your job has ended, but it must mean that there is something better coming up for you! Good luck! (maybe the next job will come with a gas card too!)
    Karen in BC, beautiful babies! Congrats!
    Allie, {{{HUGS}}} Sure hoping that the reverse mortgage folks back off...
    Many more that I would like to comment on, but the memory is failing.....sigh.
    I have decided to stop beating myself up this month, I am going to be kinder and less judgemental. However, come Jan 1, 2019, I shall have to buckle down, straighten up and get with the program. I have every intention of still getting to the gym most days, although I have taken the last two days off. Was not feeling great Tues p.m., still went to the gym Wed, but just could not get into it, still did 30 min on the treadmill and 20 on the elliptical, but was not "feeling it", so decided that was enough. Decided Wed p.m. that I was not going the next morning, and I'm glad I did that. I got a bunch of stuff done at home, including finishing the house decorating and some desperately needed cleaning. All in all, it was a productive day and it felt really good to loll around in bed until 8:45! I didn't go to the gym today either, decided I needed sleep more than exercise, still had to get up and go to work, but was up early enough that I got some cleaning done again! I will be back at it Monday!
    Evelyn, Vancouver Island
  • suebdew
    suebdew Posts: 1,330 Member
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    Caught up again. Up in Dallas for DGD’s swim meet. Rained on us all the way here. We got gas for $1.84. We always wondered why gas was so high in TX since we have lots of oil in TX. We also have no state taxes so all in all TX is a great place to live. My DH also wanted to retire in Austin but I didn’t like all the traffic and not many roads to support it.
    The twins are beautiful. Almost got a basketball team with three boys.
    Battery low so I must go....
    SueBDew in TX
  • barbiecat
    barbiecat Posts: 16,907 Member
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    :)Allie, glad to hear that your dad's home went to someone good.

    :)Cathy, Thanks for the book recommendation. I put it on hold for me at the library.

    :)Yvonne, the best thing we did for ourselves with all the stuff we didn't want anymore, was to donate it and not worry about getting any money for it. We decided that getting rid of stuff was more important than other things. We have not regretted the decision.

    :) Both pets had good check ups at the vet so there are no surprise illnesses or procedures.

    <3 Barbie
  • skuehn48
    skuehn48 Posts: 2,816 Member
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    Hello all: I am sitting here with a kitten om my lap who would like to play on the keyboard and thinks the cursor is a cat toy meant just for him. It was a cold but sunny day here so I got some yardwork done, cut back some bushes and burned some leaves. Got a little more decorating done but no tree yet. We have a puppy and two kittens this year so going to do a table-top tree. Co-op is having a members sale tonight and serving dinner. DD and i are going. Last year we each won a $10 gift card.

    KarenBC - Congrats on the twins.

    Allie - Glad you are don with all that.

    Eveeryone take care, Sue in WA
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,843 Member
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    @Poerava14 - it's possible that a forum for caregivers, and especially caregivers of brain injured family members might be better for me than the in-person care giver groups.


    @bwcetc and @LisaInAR - I am actually planning to put together the story of this whole thing. I have it partially written, but it was hard to do much with it because it was too painful and I was so busy. But I'm thinking of working on it over Christmas and during my break from uni. I'm thinking of converting my website into a blog, and might devote a section of it to brain injury. (I've created my website from scratch - HTML, but I'm finding it hard to maintain with how busy I am, so I've started talking to a work colleague about setting it up in Wordpress instead)


    @Katla49 and @barbiecat
    Machka: I agree with bwcetc. You are very likely a much better person to teach those classes than the airy-fairy contingent. You’re intelligent, articulate, and have personal experience. My guess is that most of them have no personal experience with the challenges that face the family of a person who has been injured. I'm sure they've taken loads of classes, but life experience is more valuable than classes in this situation.

    Thank you! :) And you're right ... the two people running that particular class did not have any/much experience. One had been a counsellor for 8 years but had never been a care giver, the other had been a counsellor longer and mentioned she had cared for someone for a short while long ago.

    I attended a 5-week peer-led meeting (5 meetings, Tuesdays after work for about 1.5 hours) at the Brain Injury Association here, and that was good because the person leading it had experience and was a counsellor, and the whole idea was that we all share experiences, tips, etc. I got some good ideas there such as writing down everything my husband could do before the injury and then writing down where he is now. The person who suggested that said that she used her list to keep pushing at the professionals to keep working with her partner, and not to give up and say, "This is as good as it gets". It's also a good way to see progress, because I keep updating the list.

    Although I was just a youngster in the care-giving process (others had been doing it for a decade or two!), I was also able to give some tips from recent experience.


    @KetoneKaren - Thank you so much for what you said. "Scripted" is a good way to describe it ... and in I walk with my questions which are completely off the script.

    I used the "if you don't know the answer to this question, please tell me that" thing several times. The better ones I've dealt with were honest enough to tell me, "We just don't know ... every brain injury is different." But some got rather upset when I said that. It was like they didn't want to admit they didn't know.

    Moving up the food chain has been good. My husband's main Dr has been great ... I've been really impressed. She's a busy specialist but she has taken time to listen to him when we have appointments (he rambles a bit so it can take time to listen to him) and she's thorough. She also turns to me and asks me how I'm doing.

    It is this Dr who has arranged for the neurosurgeon appointment for his back, who has said that he's not to go back to work until the end of January at the earliest, and so on.


    So when the "bright young thing" from the back-to-work organisation comes in with the suggestion that she'll set him up mopping floors in a laundromat or fast food place until he can return to his position as General Manager, and that he should do squats to strengthen his legs ... it does make me laugh!!

    But I given some thought to her perspective ... she keeps going on about getting him into social situations like putting him into a position where he mops floors, or sending him to a men's shed (men's clubs where older guys get together and do small projects and talk about the old days) ... and I've wondered why that's so important to her. Well, she is young and seems to lean toward being extroverted. She has made comments like it must be so lonely and boring for him to be alone at home for any length of time. But my husband and I are both somewhat more introverted ... me, moreso than him, but we're both happy just doing our own thing. And he does have carers for part of the day, so he's not entirely alone. Plus I take him places where he's out among people. So he's not a hermit.

    But she is following a template. She keeps saying, "What I usually do is ..."



    This year has been quite the learning experience for me!!!


    Machka in Oz
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,843 Member
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    skuehn48 wrote: »
    Hello all: I am sitting here with a kitten om my lap who would like to play on the keyboard and thinks the cursor is a cat toy meant just for him.

    I miss having a cat. :) I had 3 for a while long ago, but now the place we're in doesn't allow pets. My 3 often made me laugh.

  • GodMomKim
    GodMomKim Posts: 3,632 Member
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    to page 14
  • pipcd34
    pipcd34 Posts: 16,532 Member
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    stats for the day:

    bike ride hm 2 gym- 9.57min, 146mhr, 9.6amph, 1.5mi= 103c
    ROWING MACHINE- 15min, 53aw, 100ahr, 108mhr, 2410meters= 83c
    ROPE PULL- 13min, midset, lvl5 out of 7, 99ahr, 118mhr, 1191ft= 76c
    ride gym 2 dome- 6.35min, 138mhr, 13.3amph, 1.4mi= 67c
    jog sta 2 wk- 5.22min, 9.57min mi, 147mhr, .5mi= 67c
    jog wk 2 sumn sta- 4.45min, 9.56min mi, 150mhr, .4mi= 77c
    bike ride dome 2 hm- 24.56min, 6.3amph, 145mhr, 2.6mi= 241c

    total cal 714

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