grow older better

Category: human interest

There Is No Magic Starting Date

What Is A Good Starting Date?

For me? Any day of the week/month/year!

Any day is a good time to start

for me, waiting for a specific day or time for a start never works – my brain is not like that

It’s why I do not do new year resolutions – they are made to be broken! In fact, I learned a new thing this year. There is actually a date that people quit their new year resolutions. It’s called quitter’s day and it’s the second Friday in January!!

In years past, I already knew that people quit their health club workouts early in January and I really never paid attention to the fact that it was a specific date. I learned that this year and it fits with everything I know about people’s making promises to themselves.

We humans have a hard time sticking with some of our specific promises to ourselves. So why punish ourselves for it?

In fact, why do it just consider any day your starting day? No promises needed!!

Q1 being gone posts are annoying

does telling someone the first quarter of the year is gone create positive or negative thinking?

Maybe we are all like the moon – visually, it cycles through quarters but always returns to full. And full moons are seen as omens – so why not think of quarters like the – they aren’t gone and the good omen-ness of them will soon be back!! [it’s now April 1 and the next full moon is in 11 days.] We’ll go through the rest of the crescents and have another full thing happening in 11 days. Why worry about what quarter we’re in? It can be the beginning, middle, or the end of whatever you want to consider your quarter.

I know for some people if you tell them they missed a quarter their first thinking is oh well I might as well miss the next three. Someone I knew used to say “I’m going start this on September 1” and when she didn’t start on September 1 she’d go “oh well I’ll wait till next semester.”

We all have very personal relationships with time and how we manage it.

It’s MY start!!

and it might not coincide with anyone else’s timeframe

I’m not driving so therefore I do not have to stop and start with the signals that I see. I’m a good driver. I pay attention – but blogging, writing, publishing, are not the same as driving for me. They may be for you. That’s your thing – but they aren’t for me and that’s my thing.

I’m starting today and it feels good. Will I continue tomorrow? We’ll see. No promises!!

04/01/2025
My Latest Aging Mantra

Ode To Aging

What I am writing here – it’s not a new thought for me. In fact, it’s more than 20 years old, but in those 20 years I did not think of this daily. Now I do!!

So here goes – my ode to aging or my latest mantra.

Everything takes longer

I had moved many times as an adult and my move to the west coast made me realize that packing and stacking boxes was taking a lot longer than it used to – AND – that was nearly 19 years before my most recent move!!

I knew over 20 years ago that things were taking longer, but wow since my current move, which is now a year ago, I have really come to recognize that everything I do takes longer.

Over the years I had noticed that I was not as fast doing things like biking, hiking, walking, kayaking, etc – but since I was still doing them pretty regularly, I didn’t really notice.

It wasn’t until I did them more sporadically prior to my move [and because of the move] that I realized the doings took longer – especially when I started the packing thing.

It’s been hard for me to accept this, but I don’t have a choice, so I just keep telling myself this is going to take longer than I planned.

Everything takes longer than it used to.

Everything is more tiring

It seems most all I do not only takes longer, but I get tired more quickly. I love gardening and was happy to again have a garden in the ground – not just in containers. But the raking, weed pulling, soil digging, etc. took much longer than the last itme i had a garden. Maybe, I thought, it was due to my not having done this in almost 2 decades – but as I keep at it, I realized it really was more tiring because I was 20 years older.

I used to go to several stores in one shopping trip but over time I found I can not do that. One store per trip is now my max – unless someone else is driving – then I can do a few. But even then I often opt to sit in the car and wait.

It’s not walking per se – for fun trips, like going in to D.C. – I can still walk several miles a day – with a few breaks – but it’s the shopping walking that has begun to more quickly tire me.

Many things are more tiring than they used to be.

Everything needs a longer recovery time

Things take longer and are more tiring – ok – but I also found that my reccovery period was longer as well. Not just for gardening, or yoga, or walking – but everything! In years past, my body and I had an agreement that I played hurt, and as I aged, we agreed it had 2 days to get over the hurt.

Then I took a slip and fall [I’m really ok] but I brusied my ribs and O.U.C.H.

I remembered when I used to rock climb and the rope caught my ribs when I fell. My friends and I kept climbing [after we made sure nothing was broken.] When I played softball and was pitching or catching I got dinged many times – same thing – “nothing broken – let’s play.”

But here I was many years later [actually many decades later,] and the ribs were very very sore. It was hard to drive because the seatbelt crossed the sore ribs. Sleeping was difficult because if I moved the sore ribs were more ouch.

It’s now four weeks later and they’re finally feeling better but that’s longer than I usually “allow” my body to catch up with what our agreement was – so I think my body is telling me we need to reach a different agreement.

I need a longer time to recover.

I’m sure as I continue aging, I’ll be adding to this mantra… but for now these 3 are the ones I need to remember as I go about my life – gardening, shopping, working out, etc….

10/31/2023
One Size Rarely Fits All
One Size Rarely Fits All

but gurus often tell you differently

I have written several things, including book reviews, about the concept of one size fits all.

It seems to be a concept widely used for “diets,” for telling people how they should live their lives, how they can be more productive, and sometimes for describing clothing.

From what I have learned over a rather long life, one size fits all is rarely true!

But I keep hearing it! Hmmmmmmmm

Some Examples

Diets

Ads for most “diet” products usually announce that “this is for you!” Yes YOU!

The ad is predicated on the idea that the person reading it wants to lose weight. That’s all they need to know about their audience.

Who does the ad show? Very often a young thin-ish person. You’re supposed to think wow if I take this product I am going to look like that.

That’s an age old advertising tactic: youth and sex sell – and it’s been like that since I can remember.

And you, the audience are expected to believe that it will work for you as there was no indication is was NOT meant for you and your body.

Lifestyles

Do you want to be the person who has fun, who has energy, who gets a lot of things done every day? [And makes huge amounts of money?]

Well?
1. Then you must get up at 4:30AM and go to the gym or work out at home doing specific sets of exercises.
2. Then you must meditate.
3. Then you must take a very cold shower [ice cold] – better yet you should live near a cold lake and you should jump in.
4. Then you must drink a lot of water – the gurus differ on how much you should drink but basically it’s a lot.
Work

To get the most done every day, you must start immediately after drinking all that water mentioned above. You must work for a certain amount of time take a certain length break and get right back to working setting a timer to make sure you stick to the schedule.

If you have a job where you work on somebody else’s schedule, then you have to fit all of this into your daily routine but best if you can keep your schedule as close to the same every day.

Also, don’t forget about your gratitude journal, your daily to do list or the other daily things that you’re supposed to do before your workday starts – although this could be part of what you do after drinking all that water.

I laugh at these because after drinking all that water the last thing I’m going to do is sit and make a to do list … I’m going to run to the bathroom.

Clothing

I have shopped at stores that had clothing labeled “one size.” I think what they mostly meant was the store was for people who wore sizes 6 to 8 or 10 because if you were bigger like a size 12 or 14 the clothing was not going to fit you. There were some stores that had baggy clothing. This was several years ago when baggier clothing was popular, so yeah, one size could fit many different body types, but basically clothing comes in sizes to fit the varied sizes that people. And clothing is so oddly sized anyway that a small in one brand is a medium in another and a large in yet another.

Here’s a shopper trying to find the “one” that fits them….

Moral? Caveat Emptor!!

I have to say that one of the benefits of growing up in a big city what is that you learned to not really get caught up in all the advertising because you were bombarded with it. We did pay attention to it, but we mocked it. That said I’ve still been caught by some of the advertising tricks even with a PhD in psychology, so yeah, it’s hard sometimes to not get caught up in the hype.

That’s what advertisers want to have happen.

It all means is that you have to be a very conscientious shopper with blinders on most of the time so that you can avoid the hype. If you can’t avoid the hype, you have to really think about what is being sold to you and ask if it sounds actually reasonable.

But especially – ask yourself if this is for everyone – is it really what I want for me?

Aren’t I individual enough to want something that seems a bit special?

Something that is for ME?
04/18/2023
New Themes; New Templates…

EQUALS BIG OOPS!!!

At one point last year, I put new themes onto my websites and I fiddled around and switched those a few times. They were from the same company as had developed my older ones – so my learning curve was not going to be that bad [I thought.]

Then I started playing with the different templates that were available for landing pages and blog posts and things like that – then I got into the major [coast to coast] relocation and was not doing much with my websites other than to keep fiddling with the landing pages. I stopped writing blog posts. Then I stopped fiddling because I was busy with the move. Then I needed to unwind, unpack, set back up – then holidays.

You know – life intervened.

That is until recently when I decided to start writing blog posts again for various reasons – 1 being I like writing and 2 I’m trying to work my way into creating ideas for a podcast.

After a few days try I actually got through creating a blog post. It took a lot of my recollection and trial and error working through the theme and the templates and going back-and-forth trying to follow the instructions. I finally got it done and published it. Then I put it on a group on Facebook where people look at other blog posts and comment on them. That’s when I learned of the big oops.

A few people asked how can they comment!!

That’s when I looked and had my big oops laughing moment because in all of my getting ready I forgot to drag the comment section into the new template.

I had a fun conversation with a friend of mine who uses the same templates that I use and we laughed because it’s something she would do as well – so she’s now warned to check out comment sections and all other things that I might still find that make me go oops as I produce more and more blog posts and other pages.

Learning new technology is fun most of the time but I find that if I let it sit unused for too long, I forget how to do some of it…and make some oops errors. But I ave a sense of humor and I am not afraid of technology – I know I can keep learning – sometimes a bit more slowly – but hey – I fixed the error and am ready to make more mistakes – I learn from them….

If you want to comment there should be a section below where you can actually do that and I am going to make a template of the template or a clone of it so that all of these things are available to me to use for any and all blog posts on this website. I will have to redo it for my other websites but at least now I’m practicing how to figure it all out and not get too many oops

01/06/2023
My Brain, My Eyes, and Cataract Surgery

a whole lotta learnin’ goin’ on

It has been one year since I had cataract surgery and so much has happened in this time with the communications between my brain and my eyes that I felt the need to write about it — I hope you all find it as intriguing as I did.

I know that eyes and brains are intimately hooked up. I took a neuropsychology course in graduate school and I’m sure I learned about brains and vision in high school and college.

I know the basics of how my brain and my eyes work together. And I know it’s complicated!

But – knowing this and going through a relearning process post-cataract surgery are two different phenomena. My brain was not ready for the onslaught of new information that it was getting.

[I contemplate the workings of my brain a lot — so I found it fascinating to be aware of what was going on.]

A bit of my eye background….

I am astigmatic — oops change that — I WAS astigmatic. I am also far-sighted. At one forgotten point in my life, my astigmatism was bad enough that I needed glasses most all of the time because my astigmatism issues were fixable with glasses.

At another also now forgotten point in life, my driver’s license got marked with “needs corrective lenses” which didn’t surprise me because I was wearing glasses every minute of being awake.

I did not like wearing glasses all the time and tried contact lenses, but mostly they didn’t work or they fell out or they were annoying — but I liked the idea of not having glasses on so I kept trying different contacts and finally gave up on those because the annoyance factor won out.

Then I developed cataracts which happens to many as we age. Of course, the cataracts got worse as they are prone to do, and those, along with my astigmatism made it very difficult to drive at night. I’m a good driver and I did not wish to create problems for me or anyone else so I stopped driving at night and decided it was time for cataract surgery.

[That in itself is yet another issue..why insurers balk at cataract surgery baffles me.]

Back to my brain and eyes….

Over years of driving – back and forth across the USA, across Canada, driving day and night in snow, sleet, rain, and all sorts of weather and driving conditions, my brain learned how to deal with changes in light, changes in weather, and frequently, a quick change in any or all of these things. My brain and eyes were perfectly in sync.

For example, if I got to a tunnel my brain knew that it was going to take a nanosecond to adapt from light to dark and it knew how to do that, and I knew it knew how to do that and we were safe while going into tunnels. Ditto when skiing in bright sun bouncing off the snow and then going into a ski lodge — my brain and eyes figured it out and it never was an issue.

Then came the cataract surgery — YEA — and pre-surgery, I decided that the lens that also corrected astigmatism would be best for me and my eyes!

More YEA!

My weaker eye [left] got done first, and the subsequent difference between my left and right was very discombobulating — even with my now one lens glasses on for the right eye — it was no fun to do much of anything. Two weeks later I had the right eye done and suddenly both eyes were perfect — and balanced.

I was binocular, bionic — I could see. It was a fascinating experience and I was in constant amazement that I could see very far, further than I remembered I used to be able to do. It was one of those “I forgot how good my eyes used to be because I got so used to them not being too good” kind of moment!

Every. Time. I. Looked. Anywhere.

Then I started driving. It was weird, especially as I have been driving forever! This is when I really noticed that my brain had a lot of work to do and I was fascinated by the interchanges between my eyes, my conscious brain, and my subconscious brain. They were putting together a new reality.

At first, I only did daytime driving because I quickly recognized that I needed time for the brain and eyes to adjust to the new norm. It was pretty quick learning as I was driving on very familiar roads and did not make any “road trips.”

Then came a time where I again drove through a tunnel. A very short tunnel, one I have been through a lot — but still — a tunnel. The brain went: “Get ready for dark. Get ready for dark adaptation” — followed instantaneously by: “Wow — nothing happened, everything is fine.”

By the third or fourth time through that tunnel that I realized there was no longer any “discussion” going on between my eyes and my brain about that situation.

It was when I started driving distances, and at night , that I realized the brain and eyes were still trying to figure something out. The first night-time drive, where I was also in traffic, with headlights coming at me and behind me — the brain was like “Wow the eyes can see everything again. I have nothing to do.” No issues at all. And my subconscious brain registered that fact.

The conscious brain, though, was still asking itself questions and waiting for answers!

Because I live in the Northwest we have rain — not a lot when I was newly driving again, but enough with some added oddball Spring weather — like thunderstorms, drizzle, and weather that puts you on alert that traffic, lighting, and road conditions might change — and the brain and eyes were coordinating easily about this — the conscious brain was still going: “We got to get ready for this” but it was then an immediate: “Nope, we don’t have to do anything.”

After weeks of driving under different circumstances, my conscious brain began to relax and not be in the “we have to get ready for something” mode anymore. It had had many many years of dealing with astigmatism, eyeglasses, and the issues that came with both and now it no longer had those issues to contend with and was finally exiting learning mode.

Over Spring, Summer, Fall and now Winter, my eyes, brain and I have driven in many different conditions. Fog, heavy rain, heavy traffic, highway traffic, traffic circles, road construction, to places I had never been, etc. I saw that we are fine! We are cool! We are coordinated! We are good to go!

My brain had obviously been going back and retrieving what it used to know from pre-glasses and early-glasses learnings — those memories are still there in spite of years of inaction or not needing to be accessed.

Most of the time we don’t pay attention to the connection between our eyes and brain. I certainly never did. And then: WOW did I pay attention!!

It has been fun! It has certainly has been interesting! And – it has been very educational!

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01/26/2020