anyone past 50 on here?

[Autumn Sunrise]

@chandrakirtiI'm so sorry to hear you had to say good-bye Molly! I hope you'll have many happy memories of her, and I really like your idea of donating the money you'd been spending on her upkeep to animal and environmental charities. I think Molly would approve   *hugs*

[ryn2]

@Muledeer they have the best ears!  We have tons of whitetails here; their ears aren’t quite as... showy.

 

@daveb it’s more like mon (as in monty) jay and less like the skin disease.  😂

[ryn2]

@chandrakirti sorry about your kitty!  That’s so hard, although it sounds like you did what was best for her.

[ryn2]

3 hours ago, pickles mcgee said:

Years later my daughter told me how shocked she was when her friends didn't know the common word mange.  Ooops!

Probably as surprised as I was to discover in college that most people didn’t say “out, damned spot, out” every time they cleaned a spill, LOL.

[Semisweet]

@chandrakirti, so sorry about Molly. What a lovely gesture to honor her memory with the charitable donations. 

 

@pickles mcgee, enjoy your trip to the coast. Despite not being a beachgoer, I wholeheartedly agree that "the sound of waves crashing is just the best." It's not quite the same, but there's a "white noise" app I sometimes listen to when my work colleagues get too loudly chatty, and I generally tune right to the ocean waves.

[Muledeer]

@chandrakirti I'm sure Molly appreciated the three years of a good life you gave her after someone else discarded her.  I also donate to the WWF and I will think of Molly the next time I send them money.  My heartfelt condolences to you.  

Yes, those photos were taken by the motion sensor camera.  I currently have five of them deployed at various locations around my property.  It is my favorite summer hobby, along with gardening in the greenhouse.  

@Semisweet I like white noise too and it really helps me sleep.  My white noise maker is the white water of the Bear River, which is roaring right now with all the snow melt from the mountains.  I opened my window over the bed last night and slept with a roaring river and cool mountain air and I woke up refreshed.

 

Regarding the sun, I like the sunshine and being in it.  This time of the year, I take extra precautions to apply sunscreen to NENA (nose, ears, neck and arms) every single day.  I also like to lay in a lounge chair for limited bouts of time making vitamin D.

 

Memorial Day Weekend, the official beginning of Summer, is upon us!  I plan to visit the cemetery where all my relatives are buried and decorate the graves.  It is something I have done every year of my life and I enjoy that ritual.  We used to cut flowers from the yard - roses, irises, peonies, and snowballs but now I just buy mums (crysanthimums) from the grocery store and use artificial flowers.  There are about ten graves I tend to, all in the same spot.

 

[will123]

@chandrakirti Sorry to hear about the loss of you kitty. I know were were heartbroken when our beagle died. My brother and I had grown up with her and really liked her. Seeing her on her last day was really upsetting.

 

@Mz Terry I forgot to mention that we have foxes and coyotes (arrgh!) on our property too.

[daveb]

7 hours ago, chandrakirti said:

Poor old Molly - she rallied for a day, ate and drank well, then sunk back into her malaise again. So, last night, when she could no longer support herself on her back legs, I took the decision to save her more suffering. I decided that in addition to donating all her toys, food, bedding etc to the RSPCA, I've calculated how much I spent per month on her upkeep and I'll be donating this to Greenpeace and the WWF to start with ,then various other animal charities.

Aw, my condolences.

You gave her some good years, with love and care. I also like your idea donating her stuff to the RSPCA and the monthly upkeep money to charities. That's a great way to honor her memory.

 

7 hours ago, pickles mcgee said:

My older sister had gone to college in France, so she and I started saying mange (pronounced more like "mahnj") for "eat."

My grandmother's parents were from Italy and she spoke Italian quite well. We learned "mangia" (soft g) from her; usually repeated twice, as in "Mangia, mangia", but knew it was Italian and not something most of our peers knew.

 

7 hours ago, pickles mcgee said:

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend

Same to you! Sounds like you will be having the kind of weekend you enjoy.

 

For me, long weekends are a great time to stay hermitted away at home.

 

4 hours ago, ryn2 said:

Probably as surprised as I was to discover in college that most people didn’t say “out, damned spot, out” every time they cleaned a spill, LOL.

That's what I say when my neighbor's dog gets into my yard.

 

My white noise of choice is the sound of rain.  

[pickles.]

2 hours ago, Muledeer said:

My white noise maker is the white water of the Bear River,

Haha! I love this.

 

39 minutes ago, daveb said:

My white noise of choice is the sound of rain.

I love rain too.  Any water sound, really.  Waves, rivers, rain, washing machines, waterfalls, someone running a bath...

 

2 hours ago, Muledeer said:

Regarding the sun, I like the sunshine and being in it.  This time of the year, I take extra precautions to apply sunscreen to NENA (nose, ears, neck and arms) every single day.  I also like to lay in a lounge chair for limited bouts of time making vitamin D.

I think I would love this too if I had the skin for it.  Mine just freckles, burns, peels, or gets cancer.  My skin is my least favorite body part.  (I like learning the acronym NENA--that seems useful to teach to kids!)

 

And maybe with darker skin would also come darker or less light-sensitive eyes.  Too much sun can be a headache trigger for me.  I really dislike that I'm sun sensitive, but there it is.  I've had to become the dorky-looking lady in the big floppy hat (at all times--I don't do a single recess duty without it).  C'est la vie!

[daveb]

8 minutes ago, pickles mcgee said:

I really dislike that I'm sun sensitive, but there it is.  I've had to become the dorky-looking lady in the big floppy hat (at all times--I don't do a single recess duty without it).  C'est la vie!

I have always been sun-sensitive. My pupils are naturally somewhat dilated (or appear to be compared to other people); my skin is fair and freckles and burns and doesn't really tan; I sweat easily; sunlight and high temperatures just don't agree with me. I've been told (even by doctors) that I was born to live in high latitude forests and I agree.  (I'm tempted to start carrying a parasol when I have to be out in the sun! Although it would look very odd and I don't like to draw attention.)

 

All too often it's difficult to avoid getting stuck in sunlight for longer than I like. I was in an airport a while back where I had to wait in a long line for security and the way the airport was build (with lots of high skylights and windows) I often found myself standing in sunlight even though it was indoors. ugh  

 

And people think you're weird if you don't love the sun.  

[pickles.]

On 5/25/2018 at 8:56 AM, mzmolly65 said:

Any advice from other over 50's???

Molly, your story is so similar to mine, with just some of the details changed!  I could have written most of that post about a decade ago.  I kept wanting to change professions and wanted to go back to school, but worried I would spend a lot of time and money and then not be able to get a job.  I spent years researching various educational programs and professions, and did go through a big application process for a Masters program at PSU (Portland State University), but did not get in.  I was still researching many options as recently as a year ago, but this last year I have more or less let it go.  I'm 60 now, and still would love to go back to school, but it would be to study something I love (art, art history, art curation), not to change jobs.

 

But I think I would tell the 50 year old me to go for it!

[pickles.]

9 minutes ago, daveb said:

I was in an airport a while back where I had to wait in a long line for security and the way the airport was build (with lots of high skylights and windows) I often found myself standing in sunlight even though it was indoors.

I would have pulled my big sunhat out of my backpack (I am never without it) and plopped it on my head.  Yes, I can do dorky anywhere, anytime, at the drop of a hat!

[pickles.]

I am also never, ever, EVER without earplugs.

[daveb]

1 minute ago, pickles mcgee said:

I would have pulled my big sunhat out of my backpack (I am never without it) and plopped it on my head.  Yes, I can do dorky anywhere, anytime, at the drop of a hat!

Yeah, dorky comes naturally to me (but see the aforementioned aversion to attention). I should just do it.  

[daveb]

1 minute ago, pickles mcgee said:

I am also never, ever, EVER without earplugs.

I have started carrying them with me more and more (always have some when I travel, and recently I've taken to wearing them when I am at the movies - can still hear the movie just fine!).

[Spotastic]

@chandrakirti So sorry about your kitty. 

 

As far as sun goes, I hate being out in the sun. I don't burn, though, and rarely even need to wear sunscreen. Must be the Puertorican in me. I can get pretty dark if I stay out in the sun long enough. I just usually don't. 

[pickles.]

I've thought of parasols too, daveb, but I so like to be hands-free.

 

I've carried earplugs with me for about 15 years, and worn them to the movies for that long too.  It is so weird that I teach kindergarten...

 

If ALL the kids were loud, instead of just most of them, I could wear earplugs and hear them just fine.  But you get the occasional quiet one who you can barely hear even if their mouth is right next to your ear.  Plus, I should probably stay alert to any possible mutinies being muttered under their breath.  But don't think I don't think about it.

[daveb]

Where I used to live, one Summer I noticed a neighbor was doing some yardwork and they were using a portable awning thing that they moved around the yard as they worked their way around (they weren't moving around a lot so it worked well in that case). (lots of "work" and "around" in that run-on sentence )

 

4 minutes ago, pickles mcgee said:

But don't think I don't think about it.

 

[pickles.]

19 minutes ago, daveb said:

(lots of "work" and "around" in that run-on sentence )

Hahaha.

 

Here's you not standing out, daveb:

 

Spoiler

 

[ryn2]

1 hour ago, daveb said:

I have always been sun-sensitive. My pupils are naturally somewhat dilated (or appear to be compared to other people); my skin is fair and freckles and burns and doesn't really tan; I sweat easily; sunlight and high temperatures just don't agree with me. I've been told (even by doctors) that I was born to live in high latitude forests and I agree.  (I'm tempted to start carrying a parasol when I have to be out in the sun! Although it would look very odd and I don't like to draw attention.)

 

All too often it's difficult to avoid getting stuck in sunlight for longer than I like. I was in an airport a while back where I had to wait in a long line for security and the way the airport was build (with lots of high skylights and windows) I often found myself standing in sunlight even though it was indoors. ugh  

 

And people think you're weird if you don't love the sun.  

This is so me!

[m&m]

.

[Cobie]

11 hours ago, Mz Terry said:

... I had a bad reaction to a drug I was meant to take for my bones, can't carry on with it, and am having a long wait to see the bone specialist ...

Oh dear, I am sorry to hear that. 🙁 Horrible that you have to wait; I hope it will be sooner as expected.  🍀 Very best wishes 🌸

[ryn2]

43 minutes ago, mzmolly65 said:

I'd almost blame it on age but aren't we supposed to lose our hearing as we get older???

That actually is what the cause is...  losing one’s hearing doesn’t really mean sounds are perceived as less loud.  It means that important, softer sounds (like speech) are hard to pick out from the background noise.  As you struggle to do that, and your brain’s protective reactions to loud noises slow with age, loud noises become physically painful.

 

This is a lesson from my neurologist that I learned the hard way, by not properly seating just one earplug (which is apparently worse than wearing none) during an MRI and then not stopping the test to fix it.

[Skycaptain]

@chandrakirti, sorry to hear about Molly. At least with pets we have the choice not to let them suffer, you have done the right thing

 

@Mz Terry, if your dietary requirements permit, I was advised to eat things like bone in fish to boost Calcium intake. If you live in a soft water area an occasional bottle of mineral water from a source with high Calcium content (Chalk or Limestone) might help

 

I'm one of the lucky ones, I can be outside from dawn till dusk in summer and just turn brown. I came back from Iceland looking like I'd been in the Caribbean 

[will123]

I've been seeing a pair of Canada geese with their brood on the creek that flows thru our woodlot. Today I got a good look at them and they have five goslings with them.

[Emjay537]

I seem to have missed several pages while camped out at the hospital with my son who broke his leg. Literally camped as my little van-with-a-bed came into its own. Anyway he’s had surgery and is now on the road to recovery so I’m home for a while to shower, eat and sleep in whatever order works. 

 

@chandrakirti really sorry to hear about your cat. 

[Skycaptain]

@Emjay537, hope your son makes a swift recovery 

[Tyke]

1 hour ago, Skycaptain said:

 

 

I'm one of the lucky ones, I can be outside from dawn till dusk in summer and just turn brown. I came back from Iceland looking like I'd been in the Caribbean 

well, you dressed as if you were in the Caribbean 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

Thanks for all your good wishes @pickles mcgee, @mzmolly65, @Autumn Sunrise, @ryn2, @Semisweet, @Muledeer, @will123, @daveb, @Spotastic and @Skycaptain. The house is oddly still now.

 

@Emjay537, sorry to hear your son had a broken leg, that's a shame, hope he is back on his feet for a decent amount of summer and has no ill effects.Sending my best.

 

Hope the bones see improvement @Mz Terry, I was watching a documentary about walking the Cotswolds, it was lovely.

 

Agree wholeheartedly with the ear plugs and white noise/music to sleep by. My flight ear plugs mute sound, so I can still hear the sound I choose to use for sleep, usually those delta wave rhythms I can find on YouTube. Used an umbrella a few times in the sun, but now found a big floppy woven paper hat in a charity shop. I can roll it up and put it in my bag - it's like a big 1970s style wide brimmed one. 

 

My face blindness got the better of me again. I went out in the front garden to work off a bit of grief and someone came up and spoke to me as if they'd known me for a long time. Turns out they have been working with me for the last 6 months, but- they were out of context!

 

Well, off to sleep. No purry alarm to look forward to though. Cheers!

 

 

[Kazbe]

13 hours ago, chandrakirti said:

Poor old Molly - she rallied for a day, ate and drank well, then sunk back into her malaise again. So, last night, when she could no longer support herself on her back legs, I took the decision to save her more suffering. I decided that in addition to donating all her toys, food, bedding etc to the RSPCA, I've calculated how much I spent per month on her upkeep and I'll be donating this to Greenpeace and the WWF to start with ,then various other animal charities.

Heaartfelt condolences. You did your best for her and she had a great life with you. I love your idea of donating to charity.