Psyched Out by a Computer

So here it is a month almost since my last blog and I’m here to make a confession; I have been psyched out by my new computer.  Specifically, the new MS Word 2013 (or whatever version it is. 

For days, and then weeks, I have been beating myself up because I wasn’t able to come up with anything new to write but yesterday I actually made the discovery that it wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to say, it was that I was fearful of this new version.  How ridiculous is that – so what if my headings now have blue lines and white writing?  I was actually quite shocked when I came to the realization that the different look was freaking me out.  So, is this a sign of impending old age?  Is change becoming more scary for me with each passing day, week, month, year?  What on earth will I be like in another year or so if I can’t face a little blue line? 

One of the triggers toward my realization was a discussion with my mother about learning new things, which came after me freaking out about something in the parking lot at the shopping centre (can’t remember what that was, but that’s another story).  It is really quite frightening to realize that one becomes resistant to change which in turn is a sign of failing to learn new things.  Since learning new things is part of my retirement agenda it is disconcerting to realize that I am not paying attention to myself.

Have you made discoveries like this about yourself?  Things you’d rather not know or acknowledge.  Does it freak you out?  Here I have said over and over “I won’t become an old fuddy-duddy” only to have alarm bells go off (rather slowly, I do admit). 

On the bright side, I did remember that today is Daylight Savings Time and I can happily tell you that this is a system that I have loathed and thought impractical since I was a kid so that is at least normal.

Normal? 

Copyright Alert - My Poem

A Woman of a Certain Age

I am a woman of a certain age

Life demanded I earn a wage

Now I begin to see eyes pass me by

No longer young, no longer spry

I am a woman of a certain age

 

Mirrors of the soul tell no lies

I’ve let the laughter, and the cries

Etch themselves upon this face

Living and working at a hectic pace

I am a woman of a certain age

 

Spring, then summer, now it’s fall

Looking back, was this life too small

Faded cheek, sagging jowl, tiny lips

Little bulges here and there, yes

I am a woman of a certain age

 

I am a woman of a certain age

I’ve crossed thru life, it’s been my stage

No rehearsals, no reversals

Living with mistakes, living with joys

I am a woman of a certain age

 

Yet don’t write me off just yet my friend

It’s only the autumn, not yet the end

There’s still a dance left in these feet

My life’s not over, I accept no defeat

I’m a woman of an interesting age! 

Sanne         Nov 15/2011

Jumping Jehoshaphat

Either I am getting old or my fall off the ladder last January was so traumatic that I was rendered amnesiac as to what I was doing on the ladder in the first place.  Just to go back to the beginning of this observation, all was calm on Friday morning as we prepared to start our Christmas baking and decorating the house for the festive season.  After making a lovely “statement floral arrangement” I wanted to put my Christmas angel on the buffet to counter balance the drama but do you think I could find my box of Santas and angel?  I searched high and low for 3 days, triple checking every rubber storage tub I had, crawled under beds, climbed up on ladders looking on shelves, including the one where I subsequently ended up finding the items!  I could see nothing because I was looking for a box.  This morning my brother looked up on my bedroom shelf and asked “what’s in those bags at the back” and a glimmer of a memory came back to me.

Ranting, raving, and feeling utterly baffled for three days now I feel relieved but also a little concerned, is old age catching up to me or can I put this on the fact that when we were cleaning up that shelf last year I ended up crashing off the ladder and whacked me knee so badly that I hobbled around for almost 10 months?  I’m kind of going with the latter but I can’t help being a little doubtful.

All I can recommend is “mark everything down and don’t, I repeat, don’t lose the list”!

Inundated, Overpowered and Annoyed

Do you ever review your personal email account and feel inundated, overpowered and finally just plain annoyed?  I sometimes wonder how on earth I ended up getting on mailing lists.  It’s bad enough to have nightly soliciting phone calls and junk mail in the regular mail but when you start being invaded electronically it just becomes too much.  I’ve been watching the program “Person of Interest” regularly and if we aren’t already in the throes of electronic surveillance I think we are at least on the cusp.

I recently took a training course at work that showed me how to manage my inbox at work, moving items into tasks and it has helped a lot, but somehow I find the idea of having to “task” myself at home just plain wrong.  I don’t want my home life to turn into another job, at least not when it is tedious.

Most of the time I feel as though I am up to the challenge in learning new things but lately I feel that the electronic age is starting to overpower me rather than helping me make life easier.  As my late boss used to say “it’s become a case of the tail wagging the dog”.

Driving in to work this morning the news told me that while it’s time to get the taxes in it’s also a time to watch for scam artists trying to obtain your personal information.  My goodness, isn’t it dreadful that every where you turn you have to be vigilant because there’s some electronic bandit out to get you?  I don’t want to sound old but do you remember the good old days where you just had to be afraid of a purse snatcher if you were in a parking lot one dark night? The solution – don’t be in a parking lot on a dark night!  Now the solution seems to be “don’t enter the 21^st century except at your own peril”. 

Paranoia and irritation certainly does take the fun out of innovation.

Can You go Home Again?

During my vacation I had the opportunity to go back to my childhood home.  Now when I say childhood home I mean that in a fairly loose sense since we travelled around quite a lot, but from the age of 8 to 14 I lived in Burlington and so I feel this was my “real home”.  Stepping out of the car just after we passed our old house was surreal for me.  This was something I had wanted to do for 46 years, wow, 46 years!

       It was funny to remember where our childhood friends lived, here was the babysister’s house, here was the duplicate house to ours, here was my sister’s friend’s house, here’s where the old pear tree used to stand.  Wow, the elementary school, W.E. Breckon was torn down and posh homes built in those acres.  Incredible to think that public property was sold off to private enterprise.  Where were all the children going to go to school?  Busing, apparently.  There were 4 different mass malls on Appleby Line as we approached our suburb.  Front yards had shrunk to accommodate large boulevards and sidewalks which was nice but really made the old homes look dinky small.

       We drove down the old Queen E which is now called Lakeshore Blvd and were stunned to see multimillion dollar homes by the dozens, maybe hundreds.  We were beyond delighted to then discover something unchanged, a Dutch deli that we would sometimes go to in our childhood.  I asked the cashier “how long has this shop been in business” and she replied “56 years”.  When we told her we had come back to visit after 40 years she asked “can you go home again”?  We looked at each other and weren’t quite sure how to answer. 

       For sure, it was not the same neighbourhood with no children at all in sight, no one lived in the homes we used to know, not even our school was still standing.  So I guess my answer is “no”, you can’t go home again.  Things change, we move on.  It’s as simple as that.

Segue to Storytime

I should be writing my “book” but I thought I needed some time to get myself in the correct mode so I pulled “Something More, Excavating Your Authentic Self” off my bookshelf and flipped about until I found the chapter on Fifty something. Here’s a quote worth remembering from Coco Chanel:

“. . . nature gives you the face you have when you are twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But it is up to you to earn the face you have at fifty.”

You can take that meaning any way you wish but I take it to mean that while life can rough you up a bit how you choose to move on, endure the rough spots and basically make lemonade out of lemons will build the character in your face. You can choose to be bitter and get sour and wrinkled in all the wrong places or you can laugh it off and have “smile lines” instead of wrinkles. Somewhere along this road we call life we are going to hit bumps and curves that can be pretty rough going but using yet another cliché one can choose to ride out the storm and end up in an oasis of perfection.

Now the oasis may be a single palm tree with no water except what comes from the tree or it could be several trees with a charming little pool or yet again a bustling oasis with a tiny village. Where the perfection comes in is how you perceive the oasis. I’m a woman of a certain age whose oasis is perfect because despite not having pots of money or the family I hoped for I am happy with what I have. I still see a long future ahead of me and I still have plans to do plenty of interesting things with my life. I do not look at my life as being half over, I look at the fact that at this stage of my life I have a lot more opportunities than I did when I was younger! What a revelation. What a bonus.

I ask you “why limit yourself? If you really feel as though there is no where for you to go but downwards, let me tell you to put on your walking shoes and take a walk around your neighbourhood. Take a look at the neighbours’ yards, the trees, the park, the dogs in the back yards. Listen to the birds tweeting away. Watch the cars go by. And breath. Think. Take in the sounds and the sights. There’s a beautiful world out there and you are part of it. The opportunities are there, you just have to look for them. And you have to tell yourself that you are worth it. You have value. Don’t ever put yourself down because there are always plenty of naysayers who will assist in knocking you off your horse. Build your self confidence. Trust yourself. Plug your ears to those who laugh or belittle you. The only person who can make their opinion important is you and you can choose NOT to make them important.

I repeat, “why limit yourself?

Middle Age to Elderly?

When I was a little girl I thought 60 was the turning point from middle age to being old. In fact I was still defining the end of middle age at 60 when I was in my 40’s. I am now 58 and the new old age is getting pushed back to 70. Look at Susan Lucci and Goldie Hawn, they are in their 60’s and they don’t look old. Okay, so I may not be as svelt or unlined as them but let’s face it botox and other forms of plastic surgery have assisted these ladies.

But old age isn’t simply about looks, in fact its only a very minor part of being old. Old is thinking old, feeling old and acting old. I’m pretty sure that I only have minor abrasions of old in those categories. I still enjoy challenges with new technologies (perhaps enjoy is too generous, but I work with the challenges). And yes, my joints may be a bit creaky as I get out of bed in the morning but a few stretches and I am ready to go. Acting old? I still enjoy teasing, good jokes and running under the sprinkler in my underwear.

Society talks about respecting the elderly but it is mere lip service. Commercials still ignore the elderly or they poke fun at them. More seriously, nursing homes are under staffed which leads to neglect of the elderly folks in these homes. How can we afford to put money into hockey arenas before health care that includes staffing nursing homes and other centres for the elderly? Let’s all of us remember that this destiny is also ours. Inevitably we come to the point where our families cannot take care of us adequately and they have no choice but to put us into a place that can better care for our needs.

Yesterday I watched part of Dr. Oz and the program happened to be his Power Hour for healthy living. Essentials for longevity included diet, & exercise - no smoking as another and I can’t remember the other 2 things. In the diet segment he talked about 5 vibrant coloured fruits and vegetables; apple juice, bananas, almonds; sweet potatoes; coffee and vinegar; protein drinks of various fruits and vegetables. All things I have heard a hundred times before and while I still have My Plan I must say that it is a bit discouraging to think about longevity when my destiny may take me into a nursing home where I won’t be cared for 100%.

So how much is enough to take a person to extreme old age with first class care? I’m only a regular person but I feel entitled to first class care in my old age. Don’t you?

Chiropractic Medicine

There is a lot of conflicting advice out there regarding chiropractic medicine. I had my first treatment in approximately 1996 and I went fairly regularly until 2004 when I began doing yoga. My back would go out around my shoulder blades which seemed to be caused by holding the phone on my shoulder for so many years. Naturally I’ve stopped that practice and my back only goes out once in a while in that area.

The chiropractor that I went to used the little gadget that gently pushes the bones back in place over a period of time. It is not very invasive and I was comfortable with that method. I believe that taking care of your bones is important to your health and that chiropractic medicine can help with that. However it is even more important to take up the practice of yoga to strengthen you muscles since they support your bones. With yoga you can limit your attendance to the chiropractor but I have learned, to my cost, that you shouldn’t give up chiropractic help completely. Whenever you do repetitive things or strenuous things you will inevitable hurt you muscles and bones to some extent and eventually things will go “all wrong”.

I went for emergency chiro treatment yesterday but the area is so inflamed that I will have to go back today. I am in as much pain as I was yesterday and the doctor said it was a mistake for me to do any running. Walking yes, running no. Not while it’s so inflamed. Not a problem, I can walk until the sun goes down, leaning on my trusty lawnmower heavily will get the grass cut shorter. No problem. And I will get lighter simply because the mosquitoes are draining me of blood by the galloon. I’ve probably lost 6 lbs to that alone! Seriously, it’s a jungle out there and as I walk I pretend I am Joan Wilder seeking her sister and the treasure (from “Romancing the Stone” in case you don’t remember who Joan Wilder is). It’s just an adventure and there’s no use complaining about it.

Hush, was that a bird or a wild animal lurking in the bush?

Sun Dance

Usually my birthday is a sunny day and I just wonder how David Spence could make such a mistake on my day! How grey and dismal it looks, not to mention cold. To counter the gloom I have Lady Gaga blaring through the house as I do the housekeeping and answer my telephone for birthday greetings.

Jack Benny was famous for being 39 for about a hundred years but I choose instead to simply say “I’m 29 times 2” and given the sad lack of arithmetic quizzes in school these days I have no concerns about people figuring it out! My carpool buddy likes to say that I’m 102 because of my penchant for anecdotes, most of which I suspect he disbelieves. Sadly they are only too true. J

Like me saying I was the first woman to ever be accepted on the list for government meat inspectors. It was an experiment that my father and the chief veterinarian at Burns Foods in Winnipeg came up with after the passing of the Human Rights Act that specifically talked about women’s rights in the workplace. I spent my Easter vacation in my final year at high school working on the kill floor at Burns cutting up dead pigs and cows. I still remember how to check for trichinosis and other lesions on intestines and the glands on the jawlines of critters. I can still feel the heat of the stomachs and the way they swirled around on the moving tables. I would stand in front of the line of moving heads, grab the side and put my knife to the deep side of the jaw where the glands were, three slices. I remember the first time I rang the bell when I discovered the nodules on one of the pigs. Last but not least I remember my very glamorous red rubber boots. I was one hot mama on the floor amongst all the regular black boots. Even back then I had my style. J Kelli would be so proud of me. I wore them later when I worked on the bacon line throughout the summer and I was the talk of the night crew. I was too cute for words. LOL

Oh my, I just went out to cut some tulips and I have never seen so much water in my yard and for June 4^th it is frightfully chilly. Time for the sundance. Anyone want to see the sun dance, anyone want to see the sun dance.

Being Fifty

We more mature women have been giving Marie our wisdom about turning 50, the most significant item being that we no longer care what people think or say. Fifty is like liberation to the n’th degree. Gillian and I echo Oprah’s declaration

“Our fifties are the best time ever.”

I wonder why it takes us until that milestone before we really start caring more about ourselves and less about others? Do we feel we are on the last leg of the journey, albeit the thought is not at the forefront of our thinking? Have we decided we no longer want to carry the weary loud? Do we simply feel tired of having dished out respect all our lives and now it is our turn to get a little respect? Or a hundred other combinations of “enough already”? Whatever the reason I know that I just feel like I want to do what I want, think what I think and the heck with what anyone says. It just feels great.

Another thing I’ve noticed about people in general in my age group is that we are less caring about being “politically correct” though we may give some lip service to the topic. Even men seem to shrug their shoulders and say what they think. It’s good to just be natural and not feel that we must walk a fine line of thinking like the newspapers want us to at least speak. Perhaps that is why we relate so well to Maxine of cartoon fame.

Oh dear, I’m just noticing that it is raining quite a bit which means I won’t be walking this morning unless I take my umbrella (I did put one in the car before I left). Yes, that’s another thing- we no longer fuss about our hair! But to compensate for all these “care for nothings” we have become obsessed with weight gain which is quite a downside. But that’s a talk for another day.

Today we are touring wineries, there are 2 new ones besides our 2 favorites that we like to visit when we come out here. We will be taking some bottles home with us – which is apparently against some obsolete law still on the books although it is no longer enforced if it is for private use. At least that’s what we believe. We didn’t even know about the law until Gillian read some article recently!

Let’s hope we aren’t made examples of because then I will have to make a phone call and it may be to you!

Bad Habits

It is pretty obvious that I am a creature of habit. In fact a friend of mine once said that I needed “structure” in my life. It’s true. I tend to want things to go a certain way once there is a “plan”.

They say that habits are formed within 3 weeks but I think when it comes to bad habits they are formed in 3 hours. In the case of chocolate, 3 minutes! Seriously though it is much easier to develop a bad habit, such as being a couch potato, than it is to be an exercise freak. Yesterday Richard Simmons had a great article on energy and his belief is that energy is a state of mind. I think he is correct because I know I sit in my chair watching TV and telling myself “I’m so tired” until I really believe it. But the truth is I am not tired, I am just lazy. It has gotten into such a state that even when I am home early, the sun is shining and I am energized I will still sit and tell myself that I am tired.

And now I am starting to feel my heart pumping sluggishly. It’s probably all in my mind but I have become alarmed and so I am asking myself “are you going to wait for a heart attack before you do something?” If it was someone else that is what I would be asking and trying to encourage them to get moving and doing. Why can I not motivate myself?

I think we all believe that we are invincible and that we are not really going to die. God will intervene on our behalf. We are special. Well shame on me. It’s time to do all the things I know I ought to do and stop with all these bad habits. (I’m too embarrassed to list them all!) So here’s to finishing breakfast and getting on the treadmill before I get dressed and showered. I can do this!

This is a Beatrix Potter drawing. Don't you love that scowl?

Young at Heart

I looked in the mirror when I got up a few minutes ago and thought I looked pretty wild and haggard. Then I thought “well, I’m not a movie star so I look pretty good for my age”. That led me first to think of Sophia Loren. She was on Jack Cravat’s show in the early 80’s at which time she must have been in her 50’s. I recall thinking she looked pretty darn good for her old age! J Then I thought about Lauren Bacall in the movie “The Mirror has Two Faces” when she tells her daughter (Barbara Streisand) that she still feels young inside. That’s how I feel. I still call myself a girl and I still call my friends “girls”.

Isn’t that the best way to go through life? To feel young at heart?

Some days though I do feel like an old fogey (just saying that term makes me sound old). When I was coming home on the train last night I stopped myself after I had been looking at the high school students with disgust. One of them had sat on the outer edge of the seat and didn’t budge to allow a woman to sit down on the inner side. It was cloddish, to say the least. I thought to myself as I looked out the window that I shouldn’t show disgust because it was a signing of judging which isn’t very nice and just made me feel old! (However, I must say that it’s not just young people who can be clods. I was also sitting on an outer edge and then the inside person made motions to get out – no “excuse me” or other verbal communication emitted from his throat. I’ve noticed this frequently happens and I think to myself “why does a person have to be so lazy and so rude, what’s the big deal to let the outer person know they would like to get out?” People really have lost all sense of common courtesy, why is that?)

This isn’t a lecture on manners but on youngness. Even though my outside is looking older than a spring chicken, inside I am still full of vim and vigour and I like it that way.

Life, bring it on!

Pre-retirement Planning

As promised today is about retiring (again). I had a truly wonderful conversation with a nice lady named Dolores yesterday. We spent an hour on the phone where we first discussed my various scenarios for retiring; that is at age 65, 60, 62 or now! Then we took a look at my financials which I had sent her in advance. This spreadsheet had my current expenses, income, assets and liabilities which we reviewed to ensure that I hadn’t missed anything. My goodness but she was thorough.

One of the first things she said to me that I was very wise to be calling at age 57. She said most people don’t even think about things until AFTER they have retired. Can you imagine? I’ve already been researching for the past FIVE years! I didn’t tell her that. I know my friend Palo’s husband wondered how old I was when she mentioned my retiring research to him. He thought I was young. (I just adore him). The other interesting thing Dolores said was that most people generally low ball their expenses. I didn’t brag to her that I was spot on with my expenses. As I might have mentioned before when the Canadian researcher came to my house we spent more than two hours going over my income and expenses. She had about 500 questions (no kidding, it took forever and it was the night of the ER finale – but that’s another story) which encompassed minutiae like how much money I spent per year on shampoo! When we were done I was out about $3.00 and she was terribly impressed that I knew where all my money went. And this was all done just sitting in the living room and me giving verbally answers to her clipboard questions! Okay, so NOW I am bragging. The point is, Dolores didn’t need to worry, if anything I had overstated some expenses just so I wouldn’t appear too cheap. LOL

Finally I had to ask her “So can you tell me roughly what a person should be looking at for income when they retire, given my circumstances?” I could hear the smile in her voice as she said “When people ask for a ‘give me the bottom line’ answer we tell them a quarter of a million dollars, no debt, then with the CPP and Old Age we say withdraw 4% of that $250,000 which equals $10,000.” So that would be approximately $25,000 per year so I was spot on (again) in my estimating.

We went through a scenario where I would retire at 62, changing my expense figures to what I would spend after retiring. She congratulated me on being in such good financial shape and said if I wanted to I could retire at 60 and still have funds to last until 85 (without factoring in growth).

Let me tell you that it gives me a liberated feeling that I am “safe”.

We did discuss medical but this is not her area of expertise so she said “shop around” for a provider and then research whether I should just pay up as I go. It didn’t sound as though she was very fond of insurance companies, as who is? I believe they have the same reputation as lawyers; not good.

So I am dancing the Happy Dance.

And by the way, she said she hoped I would live it up a little even now and not leave a million dollars in an estate. She said it is surprising how many people want to factor that into their retirement planning. Why we both wondered? It was interesting that Dolores actually led us into this conversation but we had discussed this at our book club last Saturday. Don’t worry about it ladies, the kids will be alright without their inheritance!

My Cup is Empty

This girl is running on empty today. If someone looked in my gratitude journal they would notice how often I end with `My cup runneth over` and I promise you that this is how I feel many times during the week. I am not unappreciative of my life and my world. This past week however has been one tough one and it is all related to this unremitting weather.

I can battle a lot of things but nature sure isn`t one of them. Nature is cruel but it is true, that`s what my father used to say.

I was planning this article earlier this morning and it segued into how much a woman takes on her shoulders in the course of her life. Our nature is to be nurturers of the world but in the twentieth century woman`s world took on an additional aspect by entering into the work force on a grand scale. This isn`t a history lesson so I won`t get into all of that but in the last four decades it is a given that a woman will go out and work even after she has children. In addition her education has led woman into the professional world and a practical mind questions `why would I go to university and get a degree and then not use it`?

Women today are between a rock and a hard place. They are juggling so many balls in the air and they are afraid to let any one of them fall. That’s how I have been feeling all week since I’ve been taking on a lot of things at home. I am assisting in organizing our Class of ’71 portion of our high school reunion this May, I am preparing to launch my second blog which date has been accelerated due to the calling of the federal election (more on that later), I’m facilitating a fashionista day for my book club next weekend and this bloody snow will not stop! Enough already. I cannot handle, in advance warnings, 3 days of steady snow in the middle of March. Are you serious David Spence? And now we have an extra 3 days of it. I am ready to put a fork in my eye.

At work I have also had it very busy with our team building session (which went off beautifully by the way), planning meetings in the middle of our building move and people running off for vacations during the spring break. Not to mention my personal agenda at work which ended up getting postponed again. Yes, it has been a trying week and then my brother Eirk came in and suggested that I needed to work on being more efficient and active at home because I was in danger for getting Alzheimer’s. Just what I needed to hear.

So yes, my cup is empty this morning. I am going to take a long hot bath, wash my hair and imagine Bette Davis handling her life. Look out book club, you may have Baby Jane knocking on the door this afternoon!