I Am Getting Old - Part Twenty-six

I am getting old because…Somehow, I twisted my knee last Friday and being the optimist I am (when it comes to aches and pains and there are millions of them now lol), I assumed it would quit hurting, I could walk and everything would be okay. How wrong can someone be? It is now Tuesday afternoon and the pain has only increased. It hurts to walk unless I stiffen the entire right leg, then it only hurts a little bit and I look funny when I walk. (Shades of Chester from the old TV show, Gunsmoke.) I have been taking Ibuprofen and that is not working very well. The pain is starting to gravitate up my thigh to my hip, probably because of the funny way I am walking.

I just started to look for a doctor in the area and have not had much success since there are lots of doctors here who do not accept Medicare, which I find hard to believe and is a story of its own. This may just accelerate the search or else I will have to go to the emergency room, and I really do not really want to. A trip to the ER may have an up side since a doctor would probably want x-rays and that would mean a second trip to the x-ray place. In either case, I think I need to get it treated. When I put my hand on the knee cap, I can feel “something” moving inside and I can “hear” the movement. It is hard to explain.

Enough about the knee for now and on to the hunt for my next topic which is, WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR SKIN WHEN IT AGES?. I always wondered why my mother had so many scrapes and bruises as she got older. Now I think I know. It seems the skin must get thinner as you age and is easier to scrape and bruise. It only takes a small pressure to damage the skin. Most of the time, I am not even sure how or when it happened. I was shopping the other night and the side of my leg started to itch. I scratched the spot (through my slacks) and that night when I dressed for bed, you should have seen what had happened to my leg. There is an injury about 3 inches long, 2 inches wide with red marks (I call them blood blisters) and bruising. Evidently, I am not aware of my own strength. lol I found a small scrape on the side of my arm. There are so many of these “injuries”, I am afraid that the doctors will think I have been beaten if I make the trip to the ER and a few months ago that may have been true.

I am not complaining. I am grateful that I still have my limbs and my skin. A few aches and pains are nothing compared to what others must feel when they lose a limb or burn their skin. I am very fortunate.

This Weekend

Hope everyone had a good weekend. Mine was good. Bil, my son, and Larry went to a gumbo cook off on Sunday and I had the afternoon to myself. I watched football, took a nap, and cleaned the kitchen. The kitchen was a must since Bil had cooked all Saturday night and Sunday morning. Do you know how much 6 gallons of gumbo looks like and what a mess it is to cook? Bil makes his own roux which was a requirement for the contest and then adds everything but the kitchen sink. Just kidding, he did not put the in sink. Bil and Larry are both chefs and we have terrific meals. I am not a shabby cook but leave most of that to them since we tend to eat different types of food. I have tried more new dishes in the past months than I can count. Something must have happened to my taste buds because I am eating things I never thought would pass through my lips and believe it or not, I really like the taste. We eat healthy, lots of chicken and vegetables. Grilled, baked, steamed food, or dishes cooked in the crock pot. The dish last night was spinach and mushroom lasagna with a white sauce. Yes, it was as good as it sounds.

I cannot believe it is November 6th already. It is still very warm here and is deceiving. Makes it difficult to believe our fall is almost over because it is so warm. I saw the weather forecast for the midwest, cold and snowy. Cannot say I miss it at all. Maybe at some time I will but for now I enjoy wearing shorts in November.

I Am Getting Old - Part Twenty-five

I am getting old because…well I forget why???? These days this is normal for me. Right in the middle of completing a task, I forget things. Like why am I doing this and what is next. I think part of it has to do with the fact, I feel unorganized. I am currently sleeping on my son's couch but the good thing is I have a place to sleep and a roof over my head and food. I have my important papers, etc., in a crate under the computer and am constantly worrying that I have lost something or something is missing. I just got through getting them organized, again, and I have not lost anything. Thank you very much. There is this canvas thing that hangs on the closet rod where I have my underwear and folding clothes. All in all it is not that bad. I am grateful for these things and thank God each night. I am looking for my own place and will have one before the new year. My son says to take my time and we will begin to accumulate household items, etc., so I will have some things to get started. If I knew enough people, I would have a housewarming party and get lots of gifts. lol I only know a few at this time, so the party will have to wait.


It is time for another cup of coffee and time for me to reorganize, again. lol

Happy Halloween!

Today and Other Stuff

It is Sunday, October 28, 2007, 3:05PM and the temperature in Phoenix is 95, Wind: E at 8 mph, Humidity: 10%. The sun is shining and overall a gorgeous day here. I have not done much today other than load and unload the dishwasher and snack. It is one of those lazy days, a day of rest. Not that I do that much on the other days. I did sweep the leaves off the walkway in front of the condo. Believe it or not it is fall and yes, the leaves fall from the trees even in Phoenix. I am wearing shorts today and that is really nice.

There are Gecko's that run along the walls of the flower garden in the front, around the back door frame. Since the parking space is at the back door of the condo, you have to be careful when opening and closing the door. Unfortunately, this morning my son found one of the Gecko's deceased on the top of the back door. Seems like no matter how careful you try to be, it does not always work. My son felt really bad that we had somehow killed the Gecko. In case, you would like to read more about Gecko's: Gecko - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

I just learned a lesson that I preached to my students about SAVE, SAVE, SAVE every few minutes when using composing documents, creating spreadsheets, presentations, etc. The breaker kicked off and of course I had not saved this post for a while and lost 2 paragraphs of it. Perhaps the paragraphs I lost were not supposed to be included here. lol I was writing about Microsoft charging such a high price for MS Office and how I had found OpenOffice 2.3. I cannot remember exactly what I had written but the point was OpenOffice is FREE and works very well with Vista and has 99.9% of the features of MS Office. If anyone needs a suite of products comparable to MS Office, I would recommend OpenOffice (from Sun Microsystems). Here is a link to the website: OpenOffice.org: Home. Until later, Sainara, Ciao, Au revoir, Adiós, Auf Wiedersehen. In case you want to say goodbye in another language, I found this site: "Goodbye" in many languages.

My Little Friend

“Poi Dog”, my son's Chihuahua. He is thirteen and a real doll. I have been trying for days to get a photo of him standing and he will have none of it. I will keep trying. If you are wondering about his name, he is named for a band called Poi Dog Pondering.

Ruth's Bottle of Hugs

You can visit Ruth at Me, My Life, My Garden . Hugs to everyone who may visit here today.

Feelings

This is not being written for people to “stroke me” or tell me that I can write or that I will be okay. It is merely my observations and thoughts today. As you read this, you will see that I am filled with self doubt and fear today. It is one of those days for me. I know who to thank for this and that is not meant kindly. For so long I was told how useless and worthless I was and I have not overcome those feelings. They manage to creep back when I least expect them. With time, I am sure they will change and I will know that I am useful and worthy.

I fancy myself a writer and a poet in my mind. Then I read my favorite blogs and I am intimidated by the post on them. I question why did I ever think I could write? Those posts seem so polished and professional and then I read mine. I seem to ramble on about nothing even though I have all these profound thoughts in my mind. At least I think they are profound.

In fact, I visited at least ten blogs this morning and only left a couple of comments. One about my obsession with coffee and one for someone taking a break from blogging for a while. The intimidation extends to comments I may want to leave because I was touched by the words of the blogger. I do not want to seem patronizing to the bloggers but so many times their post seem to express my feelings that it is scary to see that others feel as I do. What I want to ask is how, do you get past these feelings when you do not have the energy to do so? I want to cry, scream, yell, hide under the covers, withdraw from life. In other words, I feel like a child that has a tantrum. Would it do any good? No!!! Does expressing these feelings on paper do any good? Maybe, maybe not. I only know that I have to get this out of my system or I will cease to exist.

Quote

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Mark Twain

I Am Getting Old – Part Twenty-four

I am getting old because…I need peace, quite, understanding, tolerance and acceptance in my life. I wish and pray for peace for the world and all the people in the world. I pray for each of us as human beings to accept mankind and be tolerant of all people. We are all God’s children, no matter our skin color, the language we speak. I read the news each day and wonder how people can be so cruel to others and what they think gives them the right to hurt others. How on earth can one human being kill another? Do they have a conscience? Are they just evil? Are they insane? Will we ever know the answers to these questions?

Does this need for peace and understanding come with age? If so, then I wish there wish some way to instill this in us while we are still young. Perhaps the world would be a better place to live. As years pass it seems that we as a society are turning away from God and assuming an anything goes attitude. I will continue to live with understanding, tolerance and acceptance of others and hope that others around me may come to see this as a good thing and do the same.

I wrote this a couple of days ago when I was in one of those moods. That's another thing I found out. That as I get older, I get "moody". Hey, after 64 years, I am entitled.

Landscapes - Squaw Peak In Phoenix

See Other Places at These Links

1. Gene Bach

2. katherine.

3. Claire Rachael Pitt

4. david mcmahon

5. Vic Grace

6. Ron Simpson

7. SargeCharlie
8. Amazing Gracie

9. Jessie

10. Acire

11. Nikita

12. Scott F

13. SargeCharlie

14. julia
15. Patsy

16. Aditi Srivastava

17. Aman

18. Misty Dawn

19. Latharia

These photos were taken in and around the condo where my son lives. Squaw Peak Mountain is within walking distance. I just moved back here a month ago and would have taken more photos but I am without transportation at this time. Phoenix is surrounded by mountains and we have desert and palm trees. Seems like a contradiction but is simply breathtaking.

I Am Getting Old – Part Twenty-three

I am getting old because…I am happier with less than I use to be. I have discovered or finally learned that material things are not the answer to all our needs. My needs are simple these days. I want a nice place to live that has somewhere for me to sit outside and watch the world go by and join in when I want to, a place to plant flowers and tend to them, a place to call my own and live in peace, sleep late or stay up all night, just do what I want to.

I Am Getting Old – Part Twenty-two

I am getting old because…the mirror tells me so each time I ask, mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all. Seriously, each day my hair gets a little grayer and there seems to be a new wrinkle that was not there yesterday. I can do something about the gray hair but not sure what to do about the new wrinkle. I know that I will never get a face-lift since I watched a special on Discovery Channel that showed how a face-lift is done. My face hurt just watching the special and decided then that I would consider the wrinkles a sign of wisdom and leave them alone.

I approached the issue of changing my hair color today by checking out hair salons close by. Some do not do color and the ones that do are WAY to expensive. I have entertained the idea of “do it yourself” color but then I remembered the times I tried this before and the results. So I think I will just save for a month or two and let someone who knows what they are doing color my hair. Then if it turns out badly, I have someone to blame and have recourse to get it fixed. I have been watching “the trends” for fall and it seems that the must have color is some shade of brown. The problem I have with that is when your hair grows, the gray will show through quickly. I may buck the trends and go with a blonde shade. Who knows and how trivial is this?

I have not gained any more wisdom, i.e., no new wrinkles today. Just think if I gain wisdom, I may look like a prune when I am eighty, assuming I make it to that age. This makes me think that maybe I am wise enough at 64; therefore, I will not get any more wrinkles. How dumb to worry about wrinkles. Due to good genes from my grandmother and mother, I have been blessed with skin that really does not wrinkle that much and for that I am grateful.

Well, it is time to move on for today and look for other reasons why I am getting old.

I am Getting Old - Part Twenty-one

I am getting old because…as I unloaded the washer, putting clothes in the dryer, my mind drifted back to my childhood and thoughts of hanging our clothes outside in the fresh air and sunshine. I remembered our Maytag wringer washer and big aluminum tub for the rinse water being filled on washday, which was usually Monday. I remember putting “stretchers” in the legs of the blue jeans that had been starched. I remember “cooking” the starch for the clothes and my beloved “can-can” slips worn with pride under full skirts to make them “stand out”. I remembered getting the ironing board and iron ready. No steam iron back then so we “sprinkled” the clothes with water and rolled them in a towel to keep them damp so they would be easier to iron. We ironed everything: sheets, pillowcases, handkerchiefs, clothes. Washday was an all day affair at our home and thank goodness it only came once a week.

It is funny how the simplest of tasks can trigger such good memories.

I Am Getting Old – Part Twenty

I am getting old because ….I am taking naps in the middle of the afternoon and I have not done that since I was a young child, so it must be getting older that is causing this. My sleep habits have always been horrible. I would go to bed late at night and wake up very early in the morning. In the past few years, I go to bed early and still wake up early. I fall asleep very quickly and thought that was a good thing but I saw a program on sleep disorders and learned that the quicker you fall asleep, the more sleep deprived you are. Imagine that. I would wake up three or four times each night so maybe I was sleep deprived

My cat Morris caused part of my waking up. For some reason starting at 3AM, he meows, very pitiful I might add, until someone gets up to feed him. Nothing would make him stop. Not even a spray bottle of water (he loves to play in the water running from the faucet). I solved this problem by moving his litter box, food, and water to the den and at night, I shut the den door. This is a better solution than a “crate” to keep him in at night (recommended by the vet). You might ask why not just close the bedroom door. Well, Morris has this thing about doors that are closed. He will “paw” at them and then jump against them until the door is opened to stop the noise.

Morris is an unusual cat. I adopted him in 1995 at the age of 6 months. He has always done strange things. I could not leave an ashtray out at night because he would take the cigarette butts and put them under the rug in the kitchen in a straight line about an inch apart. I had glass candles on the coffee table and he would take the wicks out and hide them. One time I bought dried flowers for an arrangement that included pieces of wheat. The next day when I came home from work, he had taken all those pieces of wheat out of the arrangement and put them at different places around the apartment. I filled a glass vase with marbles and he had to try to take them out of the vase. These are just a few of the “tricks” he would do. I would never considered giving him up. He comes when he is called and gets in my lap on the love seat and purrs and is so loving. I just consider him a very smart cat, not a bother. He is like my little “child".

By the way, since moving Morris to the den at night, I do not wake up during the night but still am napping in the middle of the afternoon, so I am still on a quest to find the reason for that.