A "Don’t Fence Me In” Update

The habit of writing seems to be lost on me of late!  The thought of writing pops up at regular intervals but the action seems absent.  Lately, if there is a structure to anything in my life - I seem to resist it!  Regardless, I am here now, so update time.

COVID-19 VACCINATION update

I am within a week of being fully vaccinated - meaning that I will soon pass the 2 week waiting period after the 2nd shot.  I won’t be barred from seeing my family anymore (specifically my dearest grand daughter.)  FREEDOM!  But I have been fortunate in this pandemic.  No illness and little to no reaction to either shot.   But I will continue mask wearing and social distancing until we are closer to herd immunity ... because that is the sensible, logical and the “adult” thing to do - until we ALL can be free!!

DIET update 

I spent time thinking about my diet - not for weight loss but mostly for health.  I finally settled on a mostly Mediterranean diet.   But it isn’t really ‘mediterranean' if you aren’t being semi compliant!  In the end I settled on listening to my body’s needs! And what is needs are smaller meals, more veggies, less meat, lower carbs and no 'no-nos!’ That is as much limitation as I am willing to do.

EXERCISE update

I miss walking.   Walking "my way."  And during this pandemic,  any kind of walking has been scarce.  I refuse to blame the pandemic. Nothing has kept me from going outside and walking during these months.  Nothing but myself and one small deterrent.

What is most satisfying about walking is the solitary time, walking by myself.  Setting my own pace, viewing the scenery, thinking about things - mind drifting, no socialization or expectations.  But my husband also needs to walk and due to is disabiity, he cannot walk alone.  Oh I know there are blind folks who can do absolutely everything independently, but those kind of people are very rare when you lose vision as a senior.  That means when I walk (with him) I am "on duty."  I have to be on alert the whole time to make sure the obsticals are announced or avoided, always checking our pace since he has exactly one speed - fast - but he doesn’t have the heart and lung capacity for that speed any more.  His mind drifts, he forgets to “listen” to the messages his cane gives him.   I know it sounds (and feels) a little selfish to want to have some alone time on my walks.  But the only fix for this is to find time for 2 walks a day.  Working on this.

CLEANING OUT update

I joined a blog event last fall called Making Space. But as I suspected, I found the discipline of blogging about it hard.  I enjoy reading the posts of others, but I am happy to clean out on my own when the spirit moves me.  

My current decluttering has focused on exercise tapes and cook books.  

I get absolutely NO satisfaction out of exercising indoors.  If I am forced to exercise inside, I prefer to have a list of exercises that I can do while I watch some sort of distracting TV.  And yet I had a shelf and a half of exercise disks - each one I thought would be “the one” that helped me get in shape indoors. I am down to about 5 disks.  Big declutter there.

I hardly ever crack open a cookbook.  Same logic - I buy the book thinking this is “the one” that will help me enjoy cooking.  I will make wonderful tasty things from that book. Never! When I want a new recipe, I just hop on my computer and print something out.  I have several loose leaf binders of recipes I have pulled from the internet that I use when menu building.  I have donated a great number of cookbooks, and now I am in the process of cannibalizing a few - pulling out any recipes I made that were good, but never repeated because ... well ... hardly ever crack open a cookbook.

Funny, I never thought I would get rid of exercise tapes and favorite cookbooks.  And here I doing both.

KNITTING AND CROCHETING update

Scarf - my only knitting project right now. Finger weight yarn and it will take a long time finish because ...

... I started an Annie’s Club project called Plumberry Sampler Afghan in crochet.  

This is an indoor shot of the first 6 rows of this Afghan.  The colors are hard to capture correctly.

This is an outdoor shot and the colors are closer to normal.  

And even with natural light, the colors don’t show as true.

I am enjoying working on this - it is a great crochet learning project.  And the yarn they use for this is wonderful stuff.  Acrylic, but hard to tell without the label.

Queen blanket, also crochet, is well underway.  This is the most satisfying project I am working on at present.  No pictures to share yet but the finished object should look something like this.

My colors will be somewhat different, but you get the idea.  It really is a fun and easy project.

And then there is this little lady, Aja.

Yes, that is a smug and self-satisfied face.  Don’t those eyes say it all.  

She has made large strides with my husband.  And he has put great effort into it.  Several times a day, he goes into the bedroom to “visit” Aja.  He sits on the bed and she jumps up and rubs and rubs and rubs - and he pets - and usually it ends peacefully.  She gets herself over stimulated ending in a hiss or a swipe, but that is more rare now.  Oh, she does come out of the bedroom and wanders around the condo regularly, but she is most comfortable where her two beds are and food and litter - and she has safety behind the gate at the bedroom door (it has a cat door in it - and no one but her can pass through.) So she can come out any time she wants.

Here she is behind my recliner.  And if you look close, Milo is in the recliner.  Guess she felt the coast was clear if he was asleep.

Next month it will be the first anniversary of her adoption.  She has come sooo far since that skinny frightened and distrustful cat came to live with us.  Change is hard for her.  Not everyone could give her the time and distance she needed to adjust.  I kind of feel like she was just meant to be with us.  We love her so much and she has shown in her own way that those feelings are returned.

I think I hit all the topics.  Until next time ... 

Eyes on 2019: Exercise

!! Exercise !!
It should be one of those bad 'four letter words.'
And yet when I do it I feel so much better.

At my age - exercise is not an option.
And I am not happy about that. 

Various parts of me stop working well when they rest for too long.
Trite but true - Use it or lose it!

Don't you just hate it when 'trite but true' is ... well, true!

In 2018 I had no exercise goals, but I did do stuff.  I participated in an aerobic class 2 times a week and on the weight machines 2 times a week.  Routine - magic word.

But all that fell apart at the end of last year.   I hurt my shoulder and was advised by my doctor to leave the weight machines alone for about 8 months.  Toning - gone. Then my aerobic class changed from Mondays Wednesdays to Tuesdays Thursdays.  I can never do Thursdays.  Aerobic activity - gone.

There goes my routine.
Couch potato time!!

For 2 months I did pretty much nothing beyond thinking
on the couch -

 (by the way ... thinking is not an aerobic or toning activity ... just in case anyone was wondering.)  

Everything needs to change in 2019.  And man ... do I hate change!   I found a Monday Wednesday class called Power.  It uses free weights, a step lift, exercise ball and bands ... and is designed for toning and muscle strength.  I have given Power a try and I like it a lot.

I rented two DVDs from the library.
This DVD does not use weights but I thought I would purchase
with this one to begin with.  

I discovered in class that getting down on to the floor and get up again
was so much easier using a step up of about 4 inches.  There are
graduated risers just like in class to increase effort.

In fact I liked it so much I got a step lift for the condo - and an exercise DVD to use when I miss going to Power.  The work out is similar.  Now to just work it into my day.  One problem solved.

Aerobics is a stickier problem.  The DVD I purchased does address aerobics as well so maybe I can kill two birds with one stone.  Or I'll go back to walking.  It won't be an ideal solution in my neighborhood because it isn't really walker friendly.   But no matter.  I have a blogging friend who walks in her basement on bad days.  If she can walk in her basement  (for 6 miles of steps, I might add) I can walk in my neighborhood.  If you don't believe me about 6 miles a day, check out Life is Good - a blog by my friend HappyOne - Karen.  She inspired me to blog.

It is a plan, at least, for now.

  Without a plan or a routine, I will do nothing,

(and doing nothing is not toning or aerobic activity ... just in case you were wondering.)

😏 

It doesn't take much ...

... to lose physical conditioning when you stop moving!

I read somewhere that a 3 week break from aerobic exercise drops physical conditioning down to pre-exercise levels.  WHAT!!??  How unfair is that?  Seems like if I devoted 3 months to improving this old body, it should take 3 months to tear it down!! 

In March I devoted two days a week to a senior exercise class (aerobics, strength training and minimal stretching). and another two days to the gym for strength training.

Then I got sick ... 

Walking from the bedroom in the morning to the kitchen and back again required a nap before lunch.   My afternoon exercise was runs to the grocery store to buy ice.  

Lots of inactivity.  

Earlier this week I decided to go for a walk.  Best to get moving again.  It wasn't too bad, and the walk was slow and steady on a cool evening - with no effort to track distance or speed or steps.  Still, I did ok.

The first exercise class of the new session started on Monday.   I feel like raising a flag 'cause I survived!!

On the upside - all this unavoidable sitting and napping made my 'surgery knee' feel almost normal.  It struggled with stiffness and soreness prior to the cold - that seems to have disappeared.  On the downside - I have gained some weight.  Boo!

So I once again begin the struggle up hill to regain some endurance, strength and flexibility.  And I am considering going back to Weight Watcher's to get that weight down.

Fitness is like marriage.

You can't cheat on it

and 

expect it to work.

I looked in the mirror!

It is amazing how easy it is to deceive yourself ... especially if you don't look into a mirror! 

 Really look,

 not just glance while brushing your teeth or combing your hair.

In an effort to keep my exercise program interesting and well balanced I finally opened a DVD set purchased maybe 2 years ago.  Yes, yes ... 2 years!  Sealed up in plastic just like new, it was.

I do this little mind game thing ... get stuff and own it ... and somehow believe that ownership alone is is enough to absorb the knowledge or benefit of the item without actually reading or viewing or doing the whatever ... in this case doing the exercises.

Anyway, the DVD is Stronger Seniors. Workout Program with Anne Pringle Burnell.

The cover stated - "Safe & Easy to Follow.  Increase Stamina.  Strength training for upper and lower body.  Improve Balance."  See what I mean ... no where does it say you have to actually DO this stuff.

Anyway, I need everything this DVD proclaims, so to avoid boredom with my regular routine, I decided to try this out.  I broke the plastic on the DVDs.

The very first thing I noticed was that the 5 or 6 folks behind the instructor were old.  The second thing I thought was ... I bet this DVD set will be too easy for me.  After all, look at the participants.  They will need a slow and gentle exercise routine, and I can certainly do more.

I launched into the first disk (Stretch).  At first it was slow, but it picked up steam.  And I kept up.  Each disk was 60 minutes.  The instructions suggested alternating these disks on separate nights.  Well, of course, if you are older you need to alternate nights.  Me, not so much.

On the first disk I noticed I was actually getting a work out.  I pealed off my sweater.  I was getting warm.  I completed the 60 minutes pretty well - and it did target my upper body which needs more of everything.

I checked out the second disk (Strength and Balance).  I needed both.  I started the second work out.  It was also a pretty good work out - using weights.  I was using 3 pounds weights.  I noticed some of the participants were using 4 pounds weights.  (Heck - I don't have 4 pound weights.  I need to buy those.  In fact I will buy 5 pound weights. No one was using 5 pounds!!)  But as the program proceeded, I noticed some of the movements were uncomfortable in my right shoulder.  I backed down the routine to no weights on the right side.  Of course, the DVD participants who were following the instructor (using 4 pound weights, no less) continued on with no apparent effort.  *sigh*

Hmmm ... I am younger than those folks ... I should be able to do this with no effort!

Finally I moved on to the Balance section.  I was starting to get tired.  I was very sure the DVD folks  must be tired too.  Of course, they had their game face on, so I put my game face on (even though there was no one to see it but the cat.)

And then it got serious.

I am pretty good at balancing with two legs.  (In September I wasn't good at balancing period.  I used a walker and then a cane.  Two legs now is a step up.)  I am less confident with one leg.  But I charged on with everyone else knowing I could do this.  At some point I looked at the DVD participants ... you know ... the 'older' folks in the background.  No one, and I mean absolutely NO ONE, was struggling with the balance portion of the program.  They performed the exercises with steady feet and ankles, no support required of chair near by, and no swearing!  Meanwhile, back in my living room, my feet and ankles gamely tried to keep me upright.  They were wobbly, constantly adjusting to keep me from falling.  My hands, that were firmly instructed to not touch the chair, did so anyway.  And swearing!  Lots and lots of swearing.  The cat left the room!

I completed the second DVD.  It wasn't pretty.  And when I passed the bathroom mirror later in the evening, I noticed that the living room participant was ... well ... not in her 50s or 60s.   Somehow my eyes blinded my brain to the fact I am older.  Darn!  How had I missed that!

So - ok!  I will used these disks 'cause I apparently need them.  I will admire those DVD participants who are able to do ALL the exercises with strength and skill (and no swearing.)  And I will believe what the mirror is telling me - that I am a senior who needs to get stronger like the folks in the DVD.

I believe there is a biblical lesson about 'pride and falling' buried in this post! 😀

And, by the way, this DVD set is very good.  I don't know why I waited 2 years to break the seal and open it.

Oh, 

that's right!

That mind game about owning and not doing

 may have had something to do with that!

Never say never! The Y.

No matter what the topic ... never say never!

This past January I joined a gym!  In the past I firmly believed that I would never ever get involved in a gym membership.  The reasons are many:  dislike contracts, no interest in body building,  can't stand the gym culture that glamorizes the perfect body, not sure I would stay committed.  Nope! Not for me.

And yet ... this year I joined a gym.

After the effort of moving had died down, I noticed that my personal strength was dying down too. Condo living definitely takes less effort - 55+ communities are specifically designed to make life  easier.  Great and yet, not great!  'Easier' doesn't keep you strong.  And walking alone was not going to be enough.

About 10 minutes from the condo is a new Y.  I was curious.

In January I took a tour of this facility!  I found only good things there.  First off, no contracts, just a monthly fee.  Because it was a new year the 'joining fee' was waived.  The offerings were many:  swimming, basketball courts, cycling studios, martial arts classes, flexibility sessions, yoga studios, rock/wall climbing, circuit weight training - something for every interest.  The population, however,  was the biggest draw for me: all ages, abilities, and body types.  Many seniors, people with disabilities, and family groups.  I saw only a few serious body builders.  The rest were regular folks looking to improve health.  I felt totally comfortable.  I joined.

My own focus is strength training.  I need to maintain the muscles I have - and maybe build them back to a normal level.  I began with circuit weights - the machines.

Easy equipment to use.

Thankfully all the cardio equipment has TV.

The center provided 4 free sessions with a personal trainer to orient you to the equipment and to set the base line.  They set my base line fairly low at my request.  I needed only one orientation session - the equipment is easy to understand, adjust and use.  I never feel sore afterwards - only tired.


The center offers various cardio equipment - treadmills, stationery bikes, recumbent bikes, step climbers, etc.  Although my preference is to walk outside, my neighborhood is not walker friendly.  Having use of this cardio equipment has been helpful.





It has been 3 1/2 months since I started this membership and I can feel a difference already.  I have increased my lift weight slowly.  Small but steady progress.  I sometimes struggled with finding the time to go, but I always feel great after the workout.

Guess this is a successful start.  Best outcome??  Still doing this in April 2018!

Increase, Decrease, Decrease 2016!

I am not much for resolutions!  In my experience a resolution is good for about 3 days and then it is broken.  I also hate starting anything on a traditional date when "everyone is starting something" - i.e. New Years Day.

It is just a trap, trap, trap!

But this year I am falling into the trap for 3 personal goals. Simply put - Increase, Decrease, Decrease.  I thought I would share them here, because a public admission (and a public flogging if needed) might help compliance beyond 3 days!  Ha!

Goals should be measurable.  Pledging to be a happier person is a wonderful life attitude to seek out, but as a goal ...  how do you measure improvement.  My goals are measurable and I have a tracking system set up.

So here goes with the public pronouncement.

Goal #1
I need to Increase my activity.  Man, I hate this goal.  I have started it over many many times on this.  But I keep trying.  The past year was my couch potato year.  I thought 2014 was miserable for me and 2015 was pretty much a loss as well.  2016 must be more active - mostly because this body I have must last me precisely another 38 years (more on that in goal #3) and at this rate it won't.

Goal #2
I need to Decrease the load my legs haul around each day.  Simply put - lose weight.  I hate this goal, too.  It is so trite and so common and usually so unsuccessful.  But my weight continues to creep up. Sitting on the couch in 2015 didn't help.  I don't care if I "look younger," but I want to feel more energetic.  And if I have another 38 years, it is a long time to feel this way.

Goal #3
Finally, this goal will make some of you smile.  I need to Decrease my yarn stash.  (the operative word is decrease.)  I don't actually hate this goal.  It is clear, however, that my yarn is secretly reproducing while my back is turned  I could not possibly be guilty of contributing to this obsession!  (I am going to have to answer to God at some point for all these lies!  But for now, lying works.)

Here is where the '38 years' comes into play.

• About 5 years ago I did a yarn inventory, noting type and yardage on an excel spreadsheet.  I owned about 140,000 yards of yarn.  Using a typical measure of knitting up 5,000 yards a year - I could knit for another 28 years without ever buying yarn!  I was appalled!!  Embarrassed actually.  I went on a yarn diet in that moment.  
• A few years later I updated my inventory and I was bouncing about 170,000 total yards of yarn.  Gads!!!  Epic yarn diet failure!!!  (That was when I decided that I should be buying only male or female yarn.  No more mixing up the sexes.  The yarn was showing no control!!)  I could now knit for another 34 years without buying yarn.  Unacceptable.
• This fall I updated my inventory - (and by now no one should be surprised) the total was up again.  I now own about 191,000 yards of yarn - and this is with regular knitting and giving away yarn since the last inventory.  Now everyone, all together ... how many years can I knit without buying yarn???       "38 years!"   Correct!  You all are so smart.  :-)    

But ...

Let's get real.

For the record

 I will be buying yarn again!!

  I have a love affair with the stuff. 

It is a hobby that lights up my life. 

I want my yarn stash numbers to decrease or at least stay the same.  This goal will be the hardest one of all.  Like all 'addicts,' I am reducing my yarn temptations. I stopped all knitting magazine subscriptions, I have 'unsubscribed' from all on line yarn vendors, and I am avoiding yarn stores. It is going to be tough, but my hobby should not take up one whole room in my house - and it does!

So welcome 2016!

The year of Increase, Decrease, Decrease!

Move

I live in a neighborhood that was built about 30 years ago.  My husband and I are original residents so I remember a time when all the growth was young and not very big.  I love the maturity of the vegetation and how it provides a cool and shaded space to live and walk.

Really, there is no excuse for not walking in my neighborhood.  It is safe and well maintained and comfortable.

But for some darn reason finding time for walking is always a struggle for me.  This spring I started out so well with a routine of regular exercise.  Then the house renovations started.  Three weeks of painting, and a week of kitchen renovation ... and all those weeks and weeks to prepare and clean out and recover.  No walking then.  And some days the heat was more of an assault than even these lovely trees could cope with.

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

That is all those barriers were ... just excuses.

Last week I began again to establish a walking routine.  And I kept thinking about the why and how of my struggle with this simple habit.

And then I saw it.  The example of what happens to you when you don't keep active.  I saw it on my walk and it is a picture I just might put on my fridge to motivate me.

This is an old road way that was closed to through traffic over 30 years ago.
It ends at a creek where the bridge was washed away in a long-a-go hurricane.

Do you see it?

It is so obvious that you might miss it if you are looking too closely.  The side walk suddenly narrows.  Oh, the side walk is still there - hiding under the overgrowth of nature, but the path shrinks remarkably when not tended.

I live just to the left of this picture.

Here is the view with me standing on the narrow path.  And literally, this is where I feel like I am looking at my walking life at present. Standing on a narrow untended path.

You would think the example of inactivity in my mom's life would put the fear of God into me.  And it did for a time.  But images like that fade from memory.

I am a very visual person.  I do best with graphic examples.  My visual memory is petty darn good as evidenced by road trips when I could find my way back without a map - because I had "come this way before," ... even it is was years and years ago.

And so, in my walking world, I have come this way before.  I am standing in a place that is not well tended and I see where I want to go.   Aim for enough activity to broaden the path - my life.  This image also accurately shows how quickly you lose stamina over 60.  When I was 30 I could hold onto energy without much effort.  Now if there is no effort, the path narrows very very quickly.  Nuts!

This aging process certainly is a whole lot of work.  No wonder so many folks just give up and sit!

Out of respect to the body that got me this far - I am a bit more reasonable about expectations, but "reasonable" is not my normal mode of operation when it comes to exercise.  I am wired to be a competitive person - always looking to do more - be the best - aim for the lead.  And because of that exercise has always been "all or nothing" thinking.  After all, you can't be competing all the time.  Competing means there is a start and a finish - and someone wins.  This less younger version of me has had to readjust that thinking.  Walking doesn't have a start and finish as a habit.  The goal is not to be a winner, just physically a more active version of me.

Now my goal is to just move!  It isn't important that I beat last month's time, or walk more miles than I did last week.  The goal has slipped comfortably into what makes sense now - keep moving - and hold onto 10,000 steps a day average.  Those steps don't have to be fast, they don't have to be all at one time - but they should happen ... just happen!  As far as goals go, this one couldn't be more simple.

So here I go again.

Pedometer says today I have only 525 steps - at 8:23 am this morning.  Only 9,500 more to go!

Insanity is ...

"Insanity: 

doing the same thing over and over again

 and expecting different results."

  Albert Einstein

Oh, Albert, how true this statement is.

I do some of my best thinking on my walks.  I wonder if Mr. Einstein was a walker.

It occurred to me today as I walked that I am moving away from previous insanities.  That is not to say that my old habits were wrong or defective in some way.  No, it just means that methods I used previously never seemed to endure or make lasting improvements for me.  And yet I always fell back on using them when I was "starting over" in my quest to improve my health.  

It was a kind of insanity.

For example: In the past, I diligently recorded exercise statistics:  activities, frequency, repetitions, durations, etc.  It fit my nature to do this, and I assumed it kept me engaged in exercise.  Funny, but the "engaged" part never seemed to last as long as I wanted. 

Today while walking I reflected that I felt pretty good.  The distance, time and speed didn't really matter to me.  What counted was the feedback I was getting from my body that said:  "enjoying the walk, keep doing this till you are ready to stop, and then repeat again soon."  Right then I decided to stop record keeping on my calendar (my history of what I had done) and consider the activity as "money in the bank" for the future - improving my freedom of movement for longer into my aging with every step I took.  

The change of focus was the difference between looking behind at the past and seeing ahead into the future.

I realized the same was true for my stretching/yoga moves.  My body had some stiffness from yesterday's practice that I knew would be relieved by more practice.  In fact, I was eager to get those tiny improvements in flexibility later today ... "banking" those improvements so that my future flexibility would keep me moving and nibble. 

So I am leaving behind an insanity and hopefully finding a lifestyle.  

Only time will tell.

The only objective indicator I am using now is the step count on my FitBit.  The step count proves I am moving enough each day to avoid some of the bad things in life.  My goal is still 10,000 steps average per day.  Sometimes I get 10,000 steps through my walks, and sometimes I reach the goal through activities in the house.  No matter how I get them, it is movement!  And movement is one of those "magic pills of health" that everyone looks for but many refuse to recognize.  The FitBit and me are Buds!! 

Hope you approve, Mr. Einstein.

Structure - Who Knew!

I knew structure was important to me.  After all, I am the queen of list making, I like things orderly, I hate being late to ANYTHING and I live by my calendar as if it was a bible.  (And as I write those words I am not sure I want to be a person like that, but it is what I am.)

awesome-confusing-future-life-quote-Favim.com-335590.jpg

But the end of this month I got broadsided by the realization that the major constructs of my life - the big "gorillas" that were layered over and created major structure in my life  ... are gone.

You know what I mean - things like The Big Three: a job, raising a family, being a caregiver.

The big things in life that sometimes define you ...

 gone, 

GONE, 

GONE

from my life!

YIKES!

Oh, I didn't really notice any difference at the beginning of January.  After all, I had a funeral to manage, and some estate duties, and then we had several social engagements that I had responsibility for, and I finally put my own health front and center and saw a few doctors.  I cleaned up after Christmas, and set up my weaving station and my lego station (more on that later.)  You know, it has been a busy, busy, busy month!!

BUT ... it is grinding to a halt.  My "to do" lists have shrunk.

NOW WHAT!

Ok, I am a goal oriented individual.  So I have a few ideas bouncing around in my mind.  But those ideas were always there, and I always managed to squeeze them in-between The Big Three!!

BUT

The Big Three are GONE!

Are those few ideas worth taking center stage in my life now??

So what few ideas am I talking about ...

Movement
To begin with I need to move more.  OH . MY . GOD!  I sooooo need to move more.  I am not talking about exercise (exercise would be good too, but how about just keeping my butt off the couch where, by the way, I am sitting right now! *sigh* )

I did start tracking of my movement with my FitBit.  Again, I am not talking about exercise. I just wanted to know what my "normal" was without focusing on walking.  I discovered that I averaged 6,500 a day in January.  That is my baseline now.  New Goal - Do more than 6,500 average a day during the month of February.  And some day I just might see 10,000 steps again!!

In truth, I am pretty far away from my movement goals!  Sadly and embarrassingly so.  For example, I went for a walk today and mostly what I wanted to do during that 30 minutes of walking was find a bench and sit down!  Pathetic ... I was brutal with my self talk. "Keep those 67 year old feet moving forward you lazy thing, or you will find yourself sitting in your mother's wheel chair ... which by the way is now available."  Stuff like that!

I did sign up for a Yoga class.  I need to stop walking like an old lady and getting more flexible will help.

My Hobbies
I have a long love affair with yarn based hobbies.  I have enough yarn in my yarn room (yes, I have a yarn room - doesn't everyone??) enough yarn to knit like a banshie every day until I am 98 years old and never run  out of yarn - even if I stopped buying yarn this very minute for the rest of my life.  (Which, by the way, won't happen ... the not buying yarn part.)  Another embarrassment.  Now I find have the time, the tools and the desire to knit and weave and maybe even spin ... but I also have a little voice in my head that says things like, "Don't you have something better to do with your time."  And then I think hard and I answer myself, "No, apparently not."

Reading
I am reading more and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my Kindle.  I love zombi books, and end of the world books and stories of destruction (hmmm .... is that healthy?) but can I build a life around reading?

And .... ok, pretty much the list stops there.

So dear readers, only 3 lonely ideas are bouncing around in my brain (avoidance of wheel chairs, yarn hoarding while listening to the voices in my head, and tales of destruction.)

Maybe Psych should be my next doctor visit!!

Until next time ...

Retired Knitter.

Through My Caregiver Eyes - Are you paying attention?

It sometimes amazes me how much of life goes by unnoticed.

Oh ... I am not talking about the big stuff - big stuff is generally seen and sometimes promptly dismissed or forgotten.  But big stuff hits your personal radar - usually.

No, I am talking about the small, the inconsequential, the minor details that sometimes barely touch our consciousness.  The kind of little red flags that seem to grow slowly over the years, becoming common place and accepted ... and limiting.  

Here is an worrisome example in my mom's life and mine ...

Watching mom over the last 7 years, I realized the simple act of getting out of bed was getting not so simple for her.  In the final months at my home we had to install bed bars - not to protect her from falling - but to give her a hand hold for pulling herself up with her arms to get out of bed.  Now in assisted living, she has a bed strap that she grabs to help with rising or adjusting herself in bed.

Her torso muscles - those "core" muscles we hear so much about - aren't used for the function of rising out of bed anymore.  She uses her arms to do the work.  And last week, as I was sitting beside her - she in her recliner and reclined - she tried to get up but collapsed back.  She couldn't sit up.  She wanted me to lift her forward.  I reminded her she could adjust the recliner electronically with the touch of a button to help her sit up.  And she did.

None of this is news.  For her this is "normal" now.  Accepted. It didn't happen over night, however.  At some point in the past she must have noticed more of a struggle to do the simple action of rising from bed.  Or maybe not.  Maybe she wasn't paying attention.

But here is the "bone shivering" part of the story for me.

One morning about a month ago I was laying in bed and I started to sit up.  I promptly rolled back down. The first effort was a "fail."  On my second try, I was successful.  It took a bit of an effort and I didn't seem to remember that effort in the past.  

But as I sat on the side of the bed I thought, "Not good.  Not good at all."  Visions of my mother floated through my head.

I vainly tried to explain away the episode to myself as I looked in the bathroom mirror and brushed my teeth that morning.  Years ago I was instructed by a physical therapist to always roll on my side and push my torso up with my arms when getting out of bed.  And I dutifully have done that for about 10 years to help with back pain.

But what has that small action resulted in today?  What will getting out of bed look like in 10 or 15 years?  Will there be a strap hanging off the bed post to help pull me up?

Since that morning I added some core exercises to my routine.  At first those exercises just K*I*L*L*E*D me!!  Many unrelated muscles from my neck down to my knees tried to help with those core exercises to spare my abs from working.  Those lazy suckers just didn't want to work at all!  But I am nothing if not stubborn!

Recently the exercises seem easier to do.  There is an improvement in some things that abs are supposed to help with ... functions that were slipping and I hadn't noticed yet.   And now I can get out of bed without the use of my arms (unless the back muscles are cranky.)

I am not going for a flat belly or a "rack" ...  the usual goal of most doing core exercises.  I just want to get out of bed without help when I am 85.

We all share an aging journey.  But each of us moves through these years differently.  I am aiming for a different journey than my mom.  And the only way I can do that is if I am paying attention - to her and to me.