Sam— I know you're probably crying a lot (I would be), but I hope you're hanging in there OK. If you didn't see my message to you at the end of the July thread, please read it, because I was really feeling for you when I wrote it. It's important to let yourself mourn your friend, and remember:
grief is hard work. I am super impressed with you that you are not going on an eating binge. Is your husband being supportive? I would expect that he is feeling a lot of grief, too. Please know that I am thinking about you and wishing you well.
Kayley— My husband and I are childfree by choice as well: we made that decision nearly 20 years ago (I am 59) and have never regretted it once. I think pugs are wonderful, and I've heard that they have great personalities! As you may have gathered from my recent postings, we are on the verge of being parents of felines again, after a sad year and a half during which we've had no cats in the house. We are into oriental shorthairs, a cat breed that is related to purebred Siamese—very long, tall, & skinny with long faces and big ears. Orientals come in a wide variety of colors and patterns—basically all the ones that regular American shorthairs (the cats most people have) come in. We have had two consecutive pairs of orientals—brother-&-sister littermates—and are about to get our third pair. Their names are Oscar (for Oscar Wilde) and Nénu (short for
nénuphar, the French word for water lily):
here's the most recent picture that our breeder sent us. We pick them up on Sunday, so my husband Bob and I are getting super excited! By the way, I agree with
Ubee: you are blessed for being someone who likes to exercise. I'm sort of in the middle these days: I like to exercise some, but not as much as I should.
Ubee— I'm glad you and
Betsy are picking up on the "Evil! Evil!" chant for when you walk by sugary treats in the grocery store. =smile= I literally say it aloud, sort of under my breath, even after being basically sugarfree for a long time. I know this isn't the Tough Love thread, but I have to say it: when you made that phone call to ask your daughter about buying chocolate chips, in the back of your mind you were planning to eat some of them yourself. Isn't it frustrating how our minds can trick us by justifying doing something that is off plan? I know I've been having that problem myself recently, using the last-minute push to get our house ready for the kittens as an excuse to not do my leg exercises. =sigh= Are you ready to make the commitment to being sugarfree except for very special occasions?
Betsy— I agree with
Ubee: you appear to have a habit of "fixing" other people, when you need, for health reasons if nothing else, to focus on "fixing" yourself. I think that one of the rewards of being retired is that we
can put our own needs front and center. Yes, that tendency of yours means that you are a good person, a person who reaches out and gives of your time & energy to other people; but if you neglect your own health needs, you will not live as long, and thus will be less helpful to others in the long run. I'm a "fixer," too, or I wouldn't have become a doctor. But in the last couple of years, I've been trying very hard to think about the future, and remind myself of how devastated Bob in particular would be if he lost me at a relatively early age to complications of obesity. And now I have my niece Margaret and my great-niece Grace to think of—as well as my sister Lee Ellen, whom I don't see very often but am very close to, thanks to the phone. Your loved ones need for you to live as long as possible, and to be mobile & active in your old age!
Speaking of Grace, yesterday's get-together with her was quite an experience! We started out, as I mentioned earlier, with a focus on mail art. I told her she may or may not want to get into mail art, but I was going to give her an in-depth introduction to it, so she could make a well-informed decision. She already, at just age 14, considers herself a collage artist: a lot of collage artists find mail art a rewarding way to improve their skills and find out firsthand what other collage artists, and artists of all kinds all over the world, are doing.
Then, after dinner, I gave her my iPad2. Since I'd built it up as a surprise, I started by just saying flat out: "I'm giving you my iPad2." She looked both puzzled and a little distressed—she's a very empathetic gal—and said, "Why??" So then I explained about the pain I've been having in my left thumb joint and my need for a lighter tablet. And I voiced my strong concern that if I were to buy the iPad Air and pass my iPad2 onto someone else, I would want it to be someone who would use it as I have—as a wonderful tool for creativity and learning, not just something to play games on. The more I talked about my love (I used the word "love" more than once) for my iPad2 and my mixed feelings about giving it up, even in the face of good reasons to upgrade to the iPad Air, the more Grace began to smile and smile, her eyes getting wide with excitement. She could really tell what a compliment I was giving her, to choose her as the person to inherit my iPad2, which I have cared for well and still has many years of life left in it.
We then took it upstairs to plug it into one of our desktop computers, wipe it clean of everything I had on it (which I'd already transferred to my iPad Air), and turn it into a brand-new iPad that would be her very own. That iPad2 has a white "bezel" (the frame around the screen), and I had outfitted it, just for Grace, with a silicone wrap-around back cover in blue, her favorite color. I also gave her a blue Alu-Pen stylus, my favorite brand (after much experimenting). She was absolutely delighted with the color scheme and especially with the stylus.
She had seen other people's tablets and smartphones, of course, people who just use their fingers on the keyboard, etc., and could really appreciate what a huge difference it makes to have a good stylus. I explained to her about how our hands are an extension of our brains, and what are our hands strongly trained for? Something that feels like a pen or a pencil! She got the hang of the triple keyboard very quickly, and I showed her a few non-obvious special features it has. After that, there was very little I needed to do: she was off and running, holding the iPad securely in her left hand, with her right hand holding the stylus and punching out URLs, etc., at high speed. I gave her a few suggestions for art applications she might want to get right away, and that was it!
As I was driving her home, I asked her, "Well, did I blow your mind tonight?" She said, "Yes! Yes!" with tons of happy enthusiasm in her voice. She was already brimming with ideas about how to use the iPad, and tickled that the passcode meant that her 10-year-old brother would not be able to swipe it from her to play games on.
What else can I say? I love Grace very much, and it was a fabulous experience for both of us! I can't wait to see her next Thursday, and she is
really looking forward to meeting Oscar and Nénu. (She adores all animals, and wants to be a vet when she grows up.)