We tell ourselves that age is just number.  We still can do whatever we want–our age should not affect our actions.

No matter how smart we think we are, sometimes as our age increases, our Common Sense IQ decreases!

DIY (Do It Yourself)

Doing odd jobs around the house is good for the soul–it gives us a sense of accomplishment.

However,  some DIY jobs are not meant for creaking, aching joints and slow moving reactions.

LAST MINUTE CANCELLATION

We purchased three 7 feet tall pictures that we wanted to put on the wall.

I knew it was a huge job, so I tried to hire it out.  Unfortunately, at the last minute, the hired help was not able to come.

Now, once plans are made to do something,  Number One cannot change gears and do something else.  He must continue doing what was planned.  If the handyman couldn’t do it.  He would do it.

Did you hear me scream, “NOOOOOOO, let a younger person hang these?”   ” He will bounce better than you do.”

PICTURE THIS

In order to hang these, you need to stand on the steps.

To make the height of the steps even, Number One  brought in long, flat bricks and piled them on the steps.

He still couldn’t reach the spot for the nail.

So, we added a step stool on top of the bricks which were on top of the steps.

EYEBALL IT?

We cannot step back far enough to eyeball it to see if it is straight because we would start walking on air.

So, we need to measure top from bottom, bottom from top and in between–literally in between the pictures.

Now to complicate matters, once on top of the step stool, he had a hold a measure, a level, a drill and a tiny  screw.  Then he had to  reach as far as his arms would go to drill the screw into place,  all without falling off the step stool, the bricks or the steps.

WHAT A CLIFF HANGER!

Oh, did I mention that he was hanging these pictures on a 20 foot wall –which means, we have a long way to fall.

I want you to picture Number One standing on the step stool that has the back legs on the steps, and the front legs on the bricks.  I am standing under him, holding my arms up like the basketball player ready to receive the ball for a layup.  What scares me that most was that I believed that I was going to catch him if he fell.  My common sense has also diminished with age.  How am I going to catch a 200 pound man being pulled by gravity 15 feet above the floor?

They are up!!!

GUARDIANS AT WORK

If you look closely, those two shining lights are our guardian angels, who are  sorely overworked by two oldie moldies who have lost their common sense.

The Sirens of the Deep are calling ME–not just my husband.

Ok, the pool is not THAT deep, but it does go over my head!

Since I have become Darth Virginia with my mask, I discovered I really like swimming.  (If this doesn’t make sense, check out “My Husband’s Mistress.”)

Now, that it is October,  those cold winds are blowing– 0k, the scorching California Santa Ana winds aren’t cold, but the pool is a frosty 72 degrees.

The sun doesn’t heat up the solar panels  to get the pool to the 85 degrees that is perfect for swimming.

Why, now that I like to swim, I can’t?

A few days ago, as I walked on the beach and watched the surfers, I had a thought.

I was thinking that Number One has a wet suit, so why don’t I wear his wet suit and see if it will keep me warm in the pool.

There was no way I was going to try it on while anyone was home–which in hindsight–I should have re-thought that idea.

The wet suit was heavier than I expected.  Oh, did I forget to tell you that I have never put on a wet suit before?

I pulled and pulled and twisted and sweated and yanked and cussed for 20 minutes before I finally got that thing on.

I feel as if  I did 20 minutes of weight training because my arm muscles were killing me.  And, my back was a little wrenched, too.

When I looked in the mirror, I saw a cross between the Cat and the Hat minus the hat and the tail, and a Penguin.

I didn’t have the smooth strides of a lithe cat.  I waddled like a penguin because the suit wasn’t fitting quite right.

Was this going to work?   Was I going to freeze in the water after building up such a sweat putting om a second skin?

I grabbed my Darth Virginia helmet, stuffed the earplugs in my ears, and donned my swimming mitts.

Now I looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon!

Our dog, Max, ran back into the house once he saw me.

I stepped into the water.  I felt a tiny chill.  Then I bravely  jumped into the water and swam to the other end of the pool and back.

Holy Moly!  The water wasn’t cold!

Yipppeeeee!

I swam for about 40 minutes–it was invigorating!

My next problem.   How was I going to get out of this contraption?

I twisted, turned, pulled, swore and finally I got the suit  to my feet.  I only had to pull my feet out.

I felt I was giving birth again.  I haven’t pushed so hard to get something out of/off of my body in 31 years!           

How do surfers do this every day?

The Sirens are calling me, but the Creature from the Black  Lagoon is holding me back.

Are you taking bets on who is going to win?

Growing up, my pink Schwinn bike was my escape and my fast getaway.

I remember bounding down the steps of the side porch-actually I missed a few, but still landed on my feet.

I jerked my bike away from the house, slid my leg through (I didn’t have to swing it over, it was a “girls” bike) stood up and peddled as fast I could  to the road.

Our road was the best to bicycle on, because it was the only paved road in the area.   It was so much easier riding on blacktop than the gravel roads.

I spent hours biking around the neighborhood and going up and down the street at top speed–or as fast as a ONE gear bike can go.

THAT WAS THEN!

NOW, there are no more quick bounds out the door, jumping on my bicycle and riding on the street in front of my house.

BIKING IS NOW A PROCESS!

I still do bike in  the neighborhood, but not directly in front of the house because there are LONG and STEEP hills.

So the next best thing Number One and I do is bike in our neighborhood by the beach.

As you can see our neighborhood is not flat, even along the beach.

No bounding out of the house because:

We must don our bike shorts and shirts.  We do  have to look the part, so we can fit in with the “professional” bikers that wiz by us at 95 miles an hour.  You think I’m kidding, come ride with me.

Since we cannot bound down the steps and jump on the bike, we need to take it to somewhere we can ride.

So, that involves putting the  bike rack  into the hitch that was specially attached to  Number One’s car so we can ride our bikes “in the neighborhood”.

To install the bike rack, you need two wrenches.  One to hold the end of the screw and one to turn the bolt–but that is after you  fiddle around with the rack checking to see which hole we need to put the screw into.

We still need to put the bikes onto the rack.  However, Number One stores the bikes on the ceiling.  Only someone with strong arms can bring them down–meaning it is not me!

Then, check the air in the tires.  Why are they always low?  My Schwinn tires were never low and if they were, I never noticed it.  As long as I could ride, I was happy.

Next, we fit the bikes into the specially designed  holders and pull the straps into place, then we double and triple check to see that the bikes are held in place so they don’t go flying off the rack..

As a kid, I wonder how far I could have biked by now?

Once we get to the street where we can park our car, we have to go through the same process with the rack, only  in reverse.

The bikes are finally  on the street that we will ride on–yeah!!!!!

NO, WE ARE NOT READY TO RIDE!

First, we need to put on our helmets, then we put on the gloves that do not cover our finger past the first knuckle.  I  slip on the camel-back backpack so I can drink  my water whenever I want.

STILL NOT READY.

Now we need to put in the earplugs for our iPods (yes I am behind the times) or our iPhones.  Next, check to make sure it is playing the tunes you like.

You grab the handle ready to go and uh-oh–I need to turn on the RunKeeper App on my phone.  I need to know the distance I have traveled,  my speed, my average speed, and how many calories I spent on this ride.

Finally, I am ready to go!

I swing my leg over the bike–I know–it’s a bummer that they don’t sell girls bikes.  I could have very easily slung my leg over when I was kid, but now it is like slinging my leg over a horse.

I push down on the pedal, start off and oh my goodness, I forgot!

I FORGOT MY HEART MONITOR!!!!

It almost seems pointless to ride now because I forgot my Orange Theory heart monitor.

I won’t be able to see how orange and red I am.    There is no record of my heart beat!  I could have shown the young coaches  that I was exercising over the weekend.

Yes, I biked 10 miles, rode up steep, heart pounding hills, but it DIDN’T COUNT.

Tomorrow,  I am creating a bike check-off list that will be attached to my helmet!

I just have to remember to tape it to my helmet!

Oh what a mother will do to hang out with her grown children!

My oldest has been going to a workout center named Orange Theory.  Sounds strange, I know.  The name comes from the idea that we need to be in a “zone” of 80% of our heart-rate in order to get the maximum benefit from our workout.

While visiting last month, my oldest convinced my youngest to go workout with her and sort of guilted me into going, too.  I told her  I was afraid that everyone there was going to be young with perfect bodies.

“Oh, no,” she said.  “there are older people and”–then she hesitates–“those that are not in perfect condition.”    That was a good save!

My daughter needs to get her contacts changed–there were no old people there.  Oops, maybe I saw a 40 year old.  Again, not old.

Yes, you guessed it, I think there was one person there who could maybe have lost 15 pounds.  No where near my numbers!

I was fitted for a heart monitor–that should have been my first signal that this was going to be more than I bargained for.  Oh, they give you a free first lesson to entice you into coming.  That is not an enticement.  Give me a piece of chocolate cake if you want to entice me .

Once inside, you can either start on the treadmill or the floor lifting weights.  I started on the treadmill.

All I can say is that Thank Goodness the trainers and staff are really sweet and supportive while they are giving orders like a drill sergeant to increase the pace or increase the incline.

I was red.   My face was red, my neck was red and the screen displaying my colors was RED.  I skipped orange and went straight to RED.

I had to keep up.  There is something in my genetic makeup that if someone tells me to go faster, I go faster.  If they tell me to go higher, I go higher.

Dumb!

Tired!

No, EXHAUSTED!!!

Noooooo, I was  NOT done.  I still had to lift weights and contort my body to make it stronger for another half an hour.

“I’m so proud of you,” both my daughters cheered.

I got news for you.  Moms want their kids to be proud of them, too.

“We have to sign up for this,” my younger daughter said.

I had no problem having her sign up.  More power to her.

“But, mom, you have to sign up with me to encourage me to go.”

I can encourage her from the kitchen table.

Nope, no such luck, I had to GO and encourage her.  We signed up for 8 sessions a month and got the heart monitor–otherwise you can’t see yourself go orange, or in my case,  red.

I have survived three classes.

My muscles are sore.

My knees ache.

And, I am so tired all day long after the session.

But, I feel better.  I feel tighter.  I feel stronger.

So I keep on going to the classes.

Oh, and I was right.  There are only young, thin, people there and me, the old, not thin one.

Today my youngest said that next month she wants to sign up for three sessions a week.

My daughters say they want me to do this for my health.

MY THEORY?

My theory is that my daughters are looking for an early inheritance!

I am not handy.

But Number One believes he can fix anything.

I can read directions.

However,  Number One doesn’t think it is necessary.

So, with these great skills and talents, we decided to don our construction helmets and belts and build a building.

Ok, I will admit that the word building may give a false impression, but we did put together a micro-house, or in layman’s terms, a shed.

Surprisingly, you need strong muscles to put together a micro-house.    You also need the ability to see things from different angles and slants and you need to swivel, contort and twist yourself and the pieces to see how they fit. This is similar to putting together a giant puzzle. Did I mention puzzles are not my thing?

Oh, and one more thing, you need the ability to bounce when you fall.

After snapping these three together Number One thought we were almost done.

The location of a mini-house needs to be on flat, solid ground.  Therefore, the narrow space between the property line and the house was the logical place for it.    The key word is narrow.

To put the sides up, you need to jam them down so they will click into place.  So, while Number One is inside, I am climbing the wall–really climbing a wall– to get a better angle.

I remember the good old days when I could put my foot on a 3 foot wall and just jump up on it.

These are not the good old days.  I got my foot on the wall, but my body  didn’t nimbly jump up.  Number One tried to hold my arm to help, but somehow my arm flexed and flopped at a grotesque  angle.  I want to say that he caught me in his loving arms and saved me.  I only bounced once before he caught me.

Captain Step-stool to the rescue!  (All rescuers need a name.)

Once on top of the wall, I had to battle the Cyprus tree.

It won.

The tree and I did a dance of King of the Hill. Cypress trees have lots of arms and they push in all directions. I grabbed for the branches, then I  lunged for the sides of the shed, but the only thing I made contact with was the sidewalk below.

The next hurdle was the vaulted roof.  Even the instructions, which, of course, I read, said you need a second person to  push or pull down on the roof so it could be attached to the walls.

There was room in some places for me to hang onto the edge of the roof–can you picture me dangling from a roof?

Other places were so squished that I had to climb up that damnable wall, fight King Cypress,  and bear down with all my might.  That fall was a little more controlled.  When you fall so many times, eventually you learn to fall without too much pain.  How do I explain to my chiropractor that my back is contorted because of King Cypress?

We finished our project in one day and under budget.

Why under budget you ask, because my pay was lunch at El Pollo Loco!

Yippee!
I will never do that again!

Now that I am Darth Virginia,–if you don’t get it–look at the previous post, my world is not outer space but under space.

I could never look under the water in a pool because I was afraid of drowning–you know water up the nose, in the mouth and in the ears, and there was no way I was getting my face wet.

So with this very special piece of equipment, I can see what others have seen all their lives.

Do you know your hands create small bubbles when you swim free-style?

When you swim in the morning, the reflection of the sun on the bottom of the pool reminds me of the static machines that allow you to see the arcing electricity.

But in the pool the arcing is magnified and multiplied  a hundred times over.

The lights shimmer, sparkle and undulate with the choppy  waves under the agitated water.

You almost feel as if you are in an underwater disco.

But in the afternoon, it is a totally different scene.Continue reading→

If I can only wait 10 more minutes before I eat, then I will have less day and more food.

Only a dieter can understand that statement.

When your food is rationed–yes rationed, you don’t want to be hungry at the end of the day.

If you finish your food at 6 p.m., what do you do for the rest of the day? We could go to bed, but then the next day you will wake up even earlier and finish your food by 2 p.m.

How do you solve this issue? My great plan was to wait as long as possible before I eat my food.  However, today and unfortunately, more days than I want to admit, those extra minutes often makes things worse.

Today, because I had to take a fasting blood test, I ate my breakfast about 10:30.  I didn’t rush in and nuke my breakfast the minute I got home. I was a little leisurely about preparing my food.

BIG MISTAKE.

The food is in the microwave.  Microwave is next to the pantry–I thought it was free of my trigger foods.

NOPE.

Hidden far back in the nether regions of my pantry I suddenly spiedContinue reading→

Usually, I crave chocolate. But on Jenny, I get my chocolate fix daily, so that is not a problem.

BUT….

Stress = Sugar Cravings

Feeling Overwhelmed = Sugar Cravings

Yes, Saturday and Sunday I was both very stressed and was extremely overwhelmed.

My simple controlled chocolate fix was not working for me.

I craved cookies–no not chocolate chip cookies, but Almond Windmilll Cookies.

What the heck was wrong with me.  I never crave that.  Ok, it was available.  I bought them for my husband who had just had surgery.  These are his favorites and I was trying to spoil him.

ONE POTATO, TWO

2 cookies.  2 more cookies.  I had to have more.  I wasn’t satisfied and I wasn’t full.  3 more cookies, 2 more cookies.  I think that was all, but I could have had even more because I was focusing on feeding an insatiable hunger.  A blind, undefined need,

Finally,  my husband said, “You better stop or aren’t you on your diet now?”

DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO

First, smoke billowed from the top of my head.  Then I thought, “Why can’t I have a few cookies?”  Then, “Why does he have to tell me what to do?”  “I can eat whatever I want.”

“No, I am still on my diet, ” I grumbled. ” I am not perfect, I ate something that was not on my diet–the world will not fall apart,” I argued a little too loudly.Continue reading→

Jenny Craig–if you follow it and eat every two to three hours–I have to say–prevents real hunger.  It does not stop the–I am stressed so I have to eat to make me feel better hunger, or the–I’m sitting in front of the tv and I am bored hunger.  And if we are truly honest  with ourselves, we did not get this way because we fed REAL hunger.

However, the other day I got busy doing things and it was closer to four or five hours since breakfast and I really was hungry.  I knew it was real hunger because I was looking at the veggies in the refrigerator–not the sweets in the cupboard.

It was real hunger because I pulled out the jicama (pronounced hick-a-ma).  It had to be peeled and cut.  Yes, I took the time to do it–perhaps it was a five minute job.  Once I cut half of it I had to eat some.

Pixabay Photo

Oh my. YUM!  Yes it tasted so good. It does not have a strong flavor, but it is a refreshing flavor. It has the texture of an apple and the density of an apple so you don’t have to eat much to feel satisfied.

Sorry–if you have stress hunger it will probably have the same effect as carrots and celery, but it is much more filling than celery.  Now I make sure I put it in my salads to help me feel full the healhy way.

Oops, I feel stress hunger coming on.  Can  I tie myself to the chair?  I can’t tie my hands because then I couldn’t type.  Take deep breaths.  See, I am writing about food so my brain is telling me–food yeah–food makes you feel better–much less stressed.   Those two minutes of sweet  bliss is like heroin to us.   The only problem is that high lasts three minutes tops and then guilt kicks in and we  feel stressed again because now we hate ourselves for not staying on track–so the brain tells us to eat and ………..

Quick, take a drink of seltzer water–ahh fizz.  Ok, I am fine now.  That was a close call.

INSTANT GRATIFICATION

I can wait for a lot things.  I don’t need to buy a piece of clothing  the minute that I like it.  I can wait until I have the funds or until I lose weight. I don’t need to see a movie the day it comes out because people say it is a great movie.  I can wait to see it on Pay Per View.

But when it comes to weight loss, I want INSTANT GRATIFICATION!

Yes, in that area I am like the new generation–I WANT IT NOW!!!!!!

I see my goal–which is a huge number by the way–and it just seems impossible.  Also depressing, is that I never buy new clothes because I don’t lose the weight.

The experts tell me to find other ways to show I have succeeded other than weight loss on the scale.

They tell me to notice  how my  clothes feel on me.  They should feel looser, they say.   No, doesn’t work for me, they still feel tight.  I think I was being delusional for a long time  in thinking that my weight wasn’t  that bad.   I will have to lose a lot more for me to notice it in my clothes and besides, I have been wearing these clothes for 15 years, and  because I have lost and gained and lost and gained about a thousand times they are stretched to my size.

I have put a lot of thought in this.  I want to see and feel real progress.

They told me I lost 4 pounds, but I don’t see it, I don’t feel it.

So, I decided I would put one pound stones in a bag for each pound lost.  I have to get a huge number of stones and I really don’t want to take my food scale to the beach to weigh a thousand stones to find 50–lets start there–that weigh exactly one pound.

There has to be an easier way.  So, I head to the pantry, where I always head when I have a dilemma.  But this time I wasn’t searching for snacks.  I was searching for something that weighs exactly one pound.   I thought a can of soup would work–nope–1.02 pounds.  Bummer.  How about some black beans–nope–again 1.02 lb.  Green beans also disappointed me with a 1.01 lb weight.

You know, when you get really desperate for something,  you start pushing food around, hoping there will be a treasure somewhere behind the healthy food.

Yes, I found it!    It was exactly 1.0 POUND!

Exactly 1.0 pound!!

Ok, I found a pound can, but what am I going to do with a million cans of hummus?

Then it hit me.  I will see and feel how much I lost and then when I have reached my goal, I will donate these to a food bank or charity.  I will feel physically, mentally and emotionally good about myself.

Talk to you later, because now I am off to buy lots and lots of alwadi hummus.