WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR MAY 2025

on my way to the airport!

Well we are at our new campground. It actually has trees! I love it! A big lake for fishing and I actually saw a couple jet-skis on the lake last night. There are some houses right on the lake who had the watercraft. No swimming area that I know of. LOTs of birds and different types of ducks! I didn’t know there were so many different types. Out there with my app to get the sounds matched to birds. I actually saw Canadian Geese! I didn’t think they came this far South! The move itself was very stressful. DH was having a fit, (because of his collection of stuff) of course. I just brought stuff to our rental unit and a few things, like my plants, over to the co-host who is staying until we get back. I’ll send pictures tomorrow as we got in too late, and I want to explore some today during a walk to get a better fix on the place.

My son called from Rehab, and I got to talk to his therapist as well. Then, my daughter called on her way to her campground. Nice to hear from both of them.

Thought for today:

Why don’t pirate like to rake leaves?

They hate Yarrrrrd work!

Some ducks! The two were a couple and were funny to watch. Wherever one went, the other was right beside. Only pictures I have so far.

RVRita in Roswell

M I think you got why you have trouble on your stomach when your over bend your knees when you kick that drags you down and lifting your head out of the water will make it difficult to stay flat in the water. I taught swimmers to learn how to breath properly and keep their head in the water on the side of the pool. You always keep your mouth open. When your head is in you blow out and then quickly turn your head to the side like you are laying face down on your bed and need to turn your head to the side. You aim your chin to your shoulder. I am right handed so I always aimed it towards my left shoulder. I know some instructors will teach you to use both sides. Sometimes it worked better to practice this on land before trying it in the pool. Once they had the breathing down. I would have them add a stroke where as they were lifting their arm out of the water that is when you turn your head to take the breath. As you reach for the wall that is when you turn your head back into the water blowing air out. By learning how to breathe properly when swimming this helps you to keep your head in the water so it easier to stay afloat on your stomach. I would also help them to learn to kick with straight legs while holding onto the side of the pool. It does help to break up the components of swimming and then put the pieces together. I am delighted you are learning the skills of swimming especially since you have so many great places to swim.

I would not attempt to swim in areas where there are rip tides. Even highly experienced swimmers can get into trouble with rip tides. I also learned as a life guard. Know your limits and do not attempt to help a drowning person directly if you know it is too much for you. You always start with pushing a life preserver of board in front of you to offer them first or if in a pool use a pole or hook for them to grab and brace yourself so you will not be pulled in.

Also this is a good reminder this start of swimming season is sometimes people drown without all the thrashing. They get water in their lungs and cannot call out and will sink straight down. I remind parents and grandparents if you take you children swimming you keep your eye on them even if there is a lifeguard. The lifeguard has a wide area to keep track of and my miss if your child is having a problem.

I am not fond of water wings. It gives a swimmer a false sense of security and they can up up in trouble because they try something beyond their skill set.

The best gift you can give them is to get them in a good program to teach them how to swim!

I still remember in college a young high school boy drowned in the pool because the college allowed the local basketball team the use of the pool after the game. The coaches were in the bleachers and assumed everyone there knew how to swim. They found the boy unresponsive at the boy at the bottom of the pool. He did not make it. He was probably too embarrassed to admit he did not know how to swim!

Nasty rainy day here today-more of the same forecast for tomorrow.

Big accomplishments for the day-washed bedding and towels, changed bed linens. Put dishes in dishwasher. Balanced checkbook and paid bills. More research on insurance plans. Chatted with SIL and cousin in Fla.

Kids who live closest had their house go live for sale on line Thursday at 4 pm, by 8:23 they texted they were under contract. Today they are under contract for the area they want to move to (about 25 minutes from where I am moving so we are a bit closer. They make this house selling and buying stuff look easy!

Work in basement coming along. I will feel better showing it even though there will still be much more that could be done. Healing is coming along so I plan on starting to sort closets and drawers (easy to do while still in recovery). Hopefully in another week or so I will feel like tackling other stuff

Medical Stuff:

Plan for tomorrow is to get some ironing done and sort out some clothes

Rita - I'm not sure I understand completely the reason behind your temporary move-but it sounds like a great place-would you consider staying there?

Heather - glad trip your son went so well.

Rebecca - hope your son continues with healing.

Lisa - snakes? Uh, no-I'm right behind you!

Margaret -your swimming instructions are so clear!

Michele - good job reaching out with Google translate.

Other things I should mention but brain is shutting down for the night.

Take care all,

Ginny in Ohio

Machka - I think it's Napier grass, or elephant grass:

https://plant-directory.ifas.ufl.edu/plant-directory/pennisetum-purpureum/

Corey tried starting seeds from a 20,000+ seed packet that our son brought him for Christmas last year - out of 72 seeded little plant pods, I think he was able to get seven to start, four beans and three tomatoes. The vast majority were dead on arrival.

So yesterday we bought tomatoes and peppers of various kinds for his garden, plus a couple of salvia that I put in a hanging basket, along with a bunch of trailing vinca that had to go somewhere.

My brick bed on the outside wall of the sunroom is all grown up with more than two inches high of various wildflowers from the package I bought two weeks ago. Tthere is a big patch of pink wildflowers in the yard that Corey wants to save, so I'll get him to transplant them into there, too. At least I know they're perennials.

I got in an hour or so of work on the little house yard yesterday, uprooting fence posts and hauling a bit of construction trash to get into the dumpster. That's the fence completely gone. Today will be a bit more hard work on the big wood fence, but with Corey. He weedeated our original yard yesterday while I was messing around with the tractor.

Today, he wants to also install the rotary blade that he picked up for his weedeater and start getting some brush down around the very back part of the bit of property the little house sits on. Should be interesting, but hopefully not too sweaty, since it's only 47 degrees out there now (8C).

Hope it's a lovely serene Sunday for everyone else, mine will be filled with buzzy noises, lots of dirt and green bits of thing stuck to me here and there. Glorious!

Love y'all,
Lisa in AR

At federal way with Sue. Forgot how cold it could be here. She told me about one of her cats that he wasn’t acting like himself and she was concerned about him. She had a 5 pm vet appointment for him and was going to have her husband take him while we went out to get something to eat and do some errands.she called mark and he told her that his urine was backed up and it could be stones, crystals or something. She said he would need surgery (3-5 thousand) and she was going to insert a needle to drain some urine out but then take him to Tacoma where the surgery can be done. We came back from the errands and awhile later he came back with an empty cage. Sue thought he had taken him to Tacoma. His face said it all. He didn’t make. They were devastated.

870870

Walk around lake here is 1.5 miles. I did that while using my bird app to listen for different types of birds. DH and I were driving by a field that had just been irrigated (pecan trees) and saw birds we didn’t know what they were: very tall legs and very long slim beak. After a bit of research with pictures I took, decided they were White-faced Ibis! On the walk I heard/saw blue-winged teal, spotted sandpiper, yellow-headed blackbird, dark-eyed Junco, white-winged dove, American robin, Sora, Northern mockingbird, a western kingbird, rock pigeon, and morning doves. I have also seen Canadian geese, mallards, Brant’s, brown headed cowbird, double crested cormorant, all around this lake! I was flabbergasted at the variety! The ducks and geese are used to people and come close to you looking for food.

The Ibis is the black bird behind the barbed wire. Closest I was able to get.

RVRita in Dexter currently