Today, on the radio, there was a discussion of stem cell research and it’s possible effect on our life expectancy. The scientist who was being interviewed claimed that there are people in their 40s and 50s right now who will live to be 150 years old!
What interested me was that they weren’t talking about extending life as we are presently, but that the treatment would return the person to the physical status of a healthy thirty year old. He claimed that you would look and feel like a thirty year old at 150 years!
It brought to mind the stories by Robert Heinlein, and his character, Lazarus Long. Science fiction is slowly becoming science fact.
My mother said that she didn’t care to live to be 100. I’m sure I must have said something like “How can you say that!? Think of all the wonderful things left to do!” But, by 90 years, she had lost most of her friends, and all the family from her generation and older. I wonder if she would have opted for regeneration, or to be allowed to follow those she loved.
The doctor said that they would be able to reverse the trend toward Alzheimer’s, but once someone developed the disease, they would not be able to return the memories that had been lost.
Can you imagine almost doubling your life expectancy? Would you rush to do it, thinking of all the grand children and great grands and so on that you would get to know? Would you study another language? How would you support yourself? Would you have three or four different careers, or would you choose to be an expert in one subject? Think of 130 years of trying to decide what meals to fix! Would you have the same husband or significant other for the entire time, or would you marry every 45 years or so?
I really like the idea of having a 30 year old body again. I’d like to be free of the knees and feet that hurt, and the achy back after gardening and so on. But……I don’t yet know how I feel about the trade offs.
What would you want to do?
Category Archives: Def-y’s Categorizing
Sorting Things Out
Sunday, my siblings are coming to my home for a family meeting, and to sort through Mother’s things that we have been storing since her death.
Mother lived with us for close to 20 years. When she passed away, she was living in an assisted living facility, and we took care of most of what had filled her rooms there within three weeks of her death.
I have coasted through a lot of the past year, knowing that I needed to attend to these things. I’ve been working on the steps necessary to close her trust, and my goal is to get this done by the end of the summer. I knew that I needed to go through everything in the basement to determine what should be passed on to my siblings, or to charity, but I dragged my feet about it.
I was making quilts for charity with the Scraps on a Mission ladies, and mentioned that I needed some healthy teenaged kids to carry things upstairs for me. Poof! Ask and ye shall receive! One of them talked to the youth pastor and he emailed me that very day!
So, this Sunday at noon, the kids will come to be our “slave labor.” They will help us, and we will make a contribution to their Mission Fund. Seems like a perfect swap to me.
I intend to spend time during the rest of the week marking what needs to be brought up, to make things go smoother. I can get some stuff boxed up, and move junk out of the way. The kids are even going to bring up binders and boxes of company information that need to go to the shredder.
Then, at 5:00, my sibs will be here to look through things, and anything we no longer wish to keep will go to one of the charities.
All these years, I’ve been talking about the dreaded basement, and I am finally going to get a start on it!
Thanks, Mom!!!!
:-) and :-(
I’m happy, and I’m not happy!
I get to lead the exercise class on Wednesday! YEA! It’s always fun to lead the class, and this time my exercise guru is going to be a part of the class. I expect the morning to be fun, so this is the part that I’m happy about.
What irritates me is the new rule the park district has about subs needing to work at least once every two months or they will be dumped from the employment rolls. What this means is that unless I work, I have to go through all the paperwork to be rehired each time our exercise guru might need a sub. Needless to say, all this paperwork can’t be accomplished on short notice.
What’s really upsetting me about this is that to avoid having to go through all the paperwork, I end up taking work away from this incredible woman who really should be leading the class.
I hope that the bean counters will be overrun with people having to re-register. It should be obvious that it’s cheaper to carry the occasional sub on the rolls than it is to have to continually re-do their paperwork. I’m not sure what benefits they expect to see from this policy. The only positive thing I can think of is that the woman I sub for will have a chance to see me at work.
I’m signed up to sub again at the end of July, and then I won’t have to sub again for two months. I’m glad the class seems to be comfortable with me leading them, but what a shame this policy takes away a really superb leader!
Been Busy!
This week has been a busy one for me. On Tuesday, Scraps on a Mission met here and five of us continued to work on lap quilts for charity. The house was filled with the sound of busy sewing machines and women’s laughter. We have five small projects completed, and I have seven more packaged and ready to be pin basted for quilting. YEA!!!
I’ve been working on the Casa Buffy National Park this week. It’s not its stunning best, but we are well on our way to getting things manicured. Dear Husband has seen to the mowing, and I have used the string trimmer and the trimmer with the shrub blade. (Note to self: get that darned blade sharpened!)
I’ve been getting up at 5:00 in the morning to weed. It’s been cool, even chilly at that time of the day, so I’ve gotten a lot of work done. There are still spots here and there in the gardens that need work, but the overall look is of lawns and gardens that are loved.
Yesterday I weeded for two and a half hours, and then went for a pedicure. A pedicure is one of the absolute best ways to pamper yourself! I came home to work in the office, and then I used the leaf blower to “sweep” the garage. If you try this, I suggest you cover your hair with a bandana, wear a face mask to avoid inhaling the dirt, and remember to carry the blower tube pointing up until you are ready to put it to work. Oh….and move the cars first! lol
Tonight is the “Fourth of July” picnic for my quilting bee. The ladies will bring dishes to pass and Dear Husband and I will grill a variety of meat. This is the only meeting where husbands are invited. I decided to do some extra things for the meal: deviled eggs, hamburger beans and a fruit salad, and we’ll provide all the condiments and beverages. I have some cooking to do, so I’ll keep this short.
I’m going to see “Larry Crowne” tomorrow. I love all of Tom Hanks movies. I expect this will be rather like “You’ve Got Mail,” not his most serious work, but the perfect sort of movie for a summer afternoon. I need to get bird seed, and potting soil, and rooting hormone in the morning, and I may make a stop at our local farmer’s market, and I plan to be lazy and bring something home for dinner so that I don’t have to cook. It should be a lazy day!
I hope you will all have a wonderful Fourth of July. Be sure to teach the younger ones why we celebrate, and the responsibilities that come with freedom! Happy Fourth!
Rainy Day with Family
I love rainy days! I like to hear the rain on the roof, and watch the drops make the leaves on the shrubs and trees dance and shine. The only thing better than a rainy day is one with my family around!
Last night, two of my sisters and a niece joined us. My-Sister-The-Nurse came to visit and have dinner with us, and my youngest sister, Frankie, and her second daughter are here for a couple of days. I love it when we are together, sharing what’s been going on in our lives.
Today, we are going to look at a quilt in progress, and see what we need from the fabric store to complete it. My niece is working on a quilt for her sister as a birthday gift, and that birthday is only three weeks away! And, I need some backing fabrics for three of the Scraps on a Mission tops that I’ve been getting ready to quilt. I can see that we will be wandering the aisles of the fabric store for a bit.
IF we have a break in the rain, we may do a little trimming in the gardens. I need to deadhead the peonies and cut back the oregano and chives. There are still things to plant, but I think the trimming might be the best use of my sister’s help. I’m amazed that she is willing to go out there and risk getting drenched, but we are drip dry, after all.
Tonight, Dear Husband is going to share what he knows about glass blowing, or more correctly, glass work, with our niece. She’s an artist in training, and he thought she might like to experience one more medium. This is the girl who welded spoons and forks into an incredible owl for a class project. Who knew she could weld!?!
So, I’m going to have a lovely unstructured day with my family, doing two of my favorite things. Life is Good!
Rain!
We’ve had a couple of rainy days this week. We have had LOTS of gray days, but not a lot of precipitation. We live in this tiny dry micro-climate, and storms frequently slide just north or south of us. I’m sure that I80 and I88 direct the rain away from us.
I live in an area where a subdivision can not be built unless there is room for a retention pond to collect run-off from heavy storms. Whoever designed the ponds immediately to the east of us clearly needs to go back to school and take those lessons again.
The first year the ponds were created it became obvious rather quickly that the series of ponds, which interconnect, do not drain fast enough. Their response to it was to increase the size of the middle pond. All along the northern shoreline of the pond are homes with walk out basements, just waiting to flood.
So, with just two days of occasional heavy rain, the ponds have filled up to the point where you can no longer see the concrete culvert connecting two of the ponds, and with just a little more rain the last two ponds might overflow, and meet each other on the road between them. The homeowners must have interesting conversations with the developer when we finally get rain!
I think the developer might luck out this week. As I came home today, I could see from a ring of trash on the grass that one of the ponds has actually dropped eight inches or more. We’ve had gray skies, but no rain today, so perhaps it will drop some more.
I’m very surprised that they haven’t had to increase the size of the tiles to allow for better drainage. Perhaps something downstream prevents them from opening up the flow. Dear Husband wondered if they have ever cleaned out the drains.
We’re not in any danger. Our house sits almost at the top of a rise, and we are higher than the area that will flood. I’m just fascinated at the ineptness of designer of the pond, and the fact that the building department wasn’t able to determine that the design was inappropriate. It ticks me off that my taxes pay for a department that allows problems like this to slide by.
Nine days???
Could it really be nine says since I last posted? I’ve certainly thought about posting, but my days have been full, so the ideas haven’t made it to the page.
The egrets and herons returned around the seventh of May. We don’t have huge numbers of them yet, but I have the pleasure of seeing at least one of them each time I go out. I have seen the big gray herons in flight several times, and they always remind me of pterodactyls.
Up until this week we had a long run of gray weather without the rain. This week we have finally gotten the rain. I made a trip to Morris, Illinois last Tuesday, and was pleasantly surprised to see that about 90% of the fields between Yorkville and Morris were planted, and many even had corn 4-6 inches tall. I know that many of the Midwestern states have had so much rain that the farmers haven’t been able to get into the fields. We seem to have been a little area short on precipitation, so I’m not complaining. What I don’t care for is being drop-kicked from the 60s to 90 degrees overnight!
Despite my post on being frugal, I bought a sewing machine! I have been concerned that my beloved Singer 301A would eventually go kaput, and not be repairable. I’ve sewed on that machine for more than fifty years, and adore it! I thought that it might be wise to have a newer machine as a back up, before Dear Husband and I retire. The new machine couldn’t be more different. The Singer is a straight stitch portable machine made of iron. While I can drop the feed dogs to stipple quilt, it was never really intended for that purpose. The new machine is computerized, has a built-in dual feed system and an 11 inch opening through which I can feed quilts. There is a built-in needle threader. It has more than 100 stitches, an alphabet and numbers, and pattern memory. I can arrange for the needle to stop in the down position and there is a knee lever for lifting the presser foot. It’s possible to run the machine without using the foot pedal. Most women who sew today take a lot of this for granted, but it’s all new to me! I hope the learning curve won’t be too steep.
I’ve planted all but two of the plants I picked up in my first garden shopping trip. The last two to go in were purple fountain grass, along the back of the bed next to the garage wall. If I had planted them a month ago, it would have been a lot easier, but this week I had to work around iris that were ready to open, and the last of the tulips. I asked DH to bring a chair and sit where he could keep an eye on me as I planted. I was afraid that I would get into a position I couldn’t get out of. Luckily, the plants went in well, and with the use of the shovel handle, I was able to maneuver myself out of a tight spot and back onto my feet. I’m sure that his presence was what made that work. Had he not been there, I’d still be waiting for a hand out of the garden! *G*
I believe that eight to ten iris were blooming yesterday. One was open for a couple of days, and then it was a domino effect. It must have been just warm enough, and sunny enough to move them along on Tuesday. I have a lot of dark colored iris: navy, purple, burgundy, bronze, contrasted with yellow and peach. There’s no rhyme or reason. If I see one I like, I try it, and they almost always multiply for me. They are at the top of the list for my favorite flowers.
We are going to celebrate my oldest granddaughter’s seventh birthday today. Her birthday was last week, and they did a party for the kids, but the adults are gathering this weekend to celebrate. Last weekend was so popular there wasn’t enough time to fit everything in. I was tickled to hear that GD1 wanted to be the Cake Boss. To further this goal, I bought her a Nordic pan that lets you create filled cup cakes that resemble a soft serve ice cream cone in shape when they are assembled. The top and bottom are baked separately, and then pudding or frosting or even ice cream can be spooned into the indentation in the bottom half. I doubt her mother has the time to cook with her, but I thought it might be something that GD1 and I could do this summer. It interests me that it’s not the eating of the cupcakes, but the baking of them, that appeals to her.
Tomorrow is Memorial Day. I hope that those of you who have been around for our wars will help our younger generation understand why we choose to remember those who have fought on our behalf.
Dietitian
(I hope that’s how you spell it…..it looks right)
At any rate, I have an appointment to talk with a dietitian. I seriously need to loose weight, and I want help creating a structure of meals to follow in planning what I eat during the day.
I’ve worked at home for twenty years and fell into the trap of snacking through out the day. Food is comfort and love to me, so I frequently think of what food I can serve for family and friends who visit. Rather than looking at food as entertainment, I need to switch my philosophy from “living to eat,” to “eating to live.”
I need help breaking my eating habits into three smaller meals and two or three snacks a day. My purpose is to keep hunger at bay, while I make sure I hit the food groups I need.
I want to find ways to get more protein into my morning meal, and I want help to determine what volume I should be eating. When you eat all the time, you tend to loose track of how much you should eat.
I know the strategies. I have them in my head. Now, I need to put them to work and see some success. Thank you, to all of you, who have shared your strategies with me. I hope that I’ll be able to remember all the great suggestions I’ve heard.
Exercise early in the day (Kim K.)
Drink WATER (Lynda and Nan)
12 raw almonds make a great snack (Nan) (walnuts, too)
Fat free yogurt as a snack (Dr. E)
Drink water before meals
Put your fork down between bites (Dr. S.)
Make my goal 5 pounds, a manageable amount (Shelly)
Those are just some of the good ideas that have come my way. Perhaps I’ll have more to share once I get going on this. If you need to loose weight, don’t wait! It gets harder the longer you put it off!
Carrel
Carrel is the word of the day, and it takes me back more than forty years to the period in my life when I was working on my bachelor’s degree. Like may students, studying in the dorm, or in my room when I lived off-campus, was not possible. Too much noise, too many distractions, or just too many other things to do, forced me to look for a quiet nook to study.
At that time you could walk into the stacks of the college library, and around the outside walls of the stack they had places where graduate students could go to study called carrels. Each carrel had a desk and a chair, a light and shelves to hold books that were currently being used. If the grad student was not using the carrel, you could slip into the chair and immerse yourself into your studies. Occasionally someone might walk past you, but for the most part it was a very quiet world that encouraged you to learn.
I remember the dry, slightly musty scent, and the low light level of the walkways. The carrels in use created warm pools of light surrounded by shadows, which provided a sense of isolation that helped keep you on task. You could occasionally hear a voice drift up the stairwell from a lower floor, or hear someone’s footsteps on the metal steps. The stairwells were open, but wrapped with a wire grid to prevent people from falling over the side. Probably a good thing given the stacks of books we carried from time to time.
I loved the library, and I enjoyed studying in the carrels. I have a great nephew at school now who has learned to hide himself away when he needs to study. I hope that he comes to love the carrels as much as I did.
Crocheting
My week was unusually tough. I felt like I was rushing around putting out fires, and trying to prevent new ones from popping up here and there. I have not worked in my studio in a month, and the weather has been keeping me out of the gardens while the weeds develop stronger and stronger footholds.
The one pleasant spot in my week has been the crocheted squares from the Share a Square project. Shelly Tucker sent the squares for two afghans to be assembled. One of my friends took one set, and I have the other. I need to get my afghan finished within the next two weeks, so I have been spending the evenings stitching the squares together.
I think that many of us have lost the pleasure working on a project like this gives us. I really enjoy sitting with Dear Husband, assembling these squares while we sit and chat or watch TV. It gives me time to reconnect to him, and also makes me feel that something useful is coming from that time.
Once the squares have been sewn into rows, I’ll crochet three rows around the outer edge to finish off the top. I’ll take a picture to share with you before I send it on to Shelly.
Share a Square will be starting their third year in August. If you crochet or if you know someone who crochets, who might be interested in making squares for this project, click on the link to the right for further information. You can be stitching now, but you need to wait until August to send your squares to Shelly. It’s the perfect way to end a busy day, and a child who is fighting cancer will carry the love you send for the rest of their lives. Give us a hand, won’t you?