Sooo Jet Laaaaggged....

Art and I just returned last week from a trip to the British Isles along with two other couples. We have traveled over 12 time zones. They say the rule of thumb for recuperation is 1 day for every time zone crossed. And it looks like we are all going to need every bit of that time and more to be normal again.

I scheduled blog posts to go up during the time we were gone. I thought I could then write about our trip as soon as I got back.

I'm afraid that won't be possible, my brain is in a total fog.

I'll need to take a hiatus to organize my photos and my brain (whichever comes first).

It was an awesome experience and I can't wait to tell you about it...

...once I'm back to normal.

Making a Drawer Organizer Out of Cardboard

I don't know what it is about cardboard that makes me want to make something with it. When we get things sent to us in cardboard boxes and the sides are still firm and clean, I like to save pieces of it.

I think it started when we moved to Illinois in 1974. I wanted to organize all our mail from banks, friends and relatives. 

I went to the liquor store and asked them if I could have one of their empty cardboard boxes. I put a strip of posterboard (not sure what you call them) at the top of each slot to label who or what bank/company it was from.

When I started teaching, I once again went to the liquor store to get several boxes and glued them together. I then attached a strip of thick posterboard at the top of each slot so I could attach a student's name and photo. They could put their papers in it throughout the day and take them home when school was over. I gave it several coats of paint and it amazingly remained in good condition for at least a couple of decades.

I even bequeathed it to a happy teacher friend when I retired.

All this brings me to the present.

I was looking in the drawer where I keep make-up. 

I was remembering how you should throw away old eye make-up. I looked it up online and it says 3 months for eye make-up.

Seriously? 

There have been times I've used eye make-up that was two years old. 😆

However, since I haven't used make-up during the pandemic, I thought I'd better buy some new ones and (shudder) throw away my old stuff.

That's when I noticed how disorganized my make-up drawer was.

So I decided to create my own organizer. I got pieces of cardboard and glued them together. 

I couldn't find my paper tape but found left over linen tape that Art had bought for displaying the photo puzzle our daughter sent him 2 years ago. It was pretty expensive BUT since he didn't need what was left over, I decided to use it to cover the rough cardboard edges for my organizer.

When that was done, I found a small can of leftover white paint and gave the organizer two coats of it.

And though it might not look it to you, it is now organized to my satisfaction.

Hmmm... I'm seeing all these old lipsticks and chapsticks sitting there. Is there any point to wearing lipstick or blush these days? Everything is covered by masks.

Ah well...

It was still a fun project.

Possessive s's or ss's or s'

A long, long time ago, I THOUGHT I learned that if something/someone's name ended with an s you should just add the apostrophe and skip adding on another s.

Hence: Dennis' or Travis' or Alexis' or Francis'

That's what I thought. Then Art looked it up and said he read that you have to add 's.

What?!?

So I looked it up and found this on Magoosh Blog.

He says if it's the plural form of a group like Johnsons or elephants, you would write it with just the apostrophe:

Johnsons' and elephants'

AND if it's a name that ends with an s like ... Dennis, you can add the extra s and make it Dennis's or you can do it with just the apostrophe and no s. You just have to be consistent about it.

OK fine.

Hooowever, he says if it's something or someone that ends with a double s, you have to add the 's. Thus:

dress's color or Jess's or Congress's

Sheesh! I hope I got that right. And I hope I can remember this.

Puzzled Mom

We take mom to an Adult Senior Center once a week. She calls it the Senior Club and LOVES going there although she told us once a week is enough when we offered to have her go twice a week.

One day she said there was a contest and she won this 300 piece puzzle. Art has done 1,500 piece puzzles (not to mention the 3,000 piece Beatles puzzle that our son sent him) he did during the Pandemic so he set up the puzzle for her right away. We figured it would be an excellent exercise for her brain.

Unfortunately, she had no concept of how to attack a puzzle. Art showed her how to separate puzzle pieces that had similar colors and designs. That didn't help much.

Then he did the frame for her.

That didn't help much either.

I stepped in and took puzzle pieces and showed her where to put them. Even that was a challenge at first until she got the hang of it.

I'm pretty sure this was the first jigsaw puzzle she's ever done. She was determined to figure it out, but it was a misery.

Then my cousin, Ellen gave her a Japanese WORD SEARCH book.

Mom LOVED it. She almost forgot to eat lunch because she got so engrossed in it.

Mom worked as a typesetter at a Japanese language newspaper company here on Oahu for some decades and even edited articles for reporters. She used to be a teacher in Japan before coming to Hawaii in 1948.

I thought I'd check one of her WORD SEARCH pages myself and was convinced she'd done it wrong before realizing that sometimes, the words were backwards on the puzzle. 🙄 Oops!

Ellen and her husband were so delighted she loved it, that they actually ordered several more for her and refused to let me reimburse them. 

Now mom will probably forget to eat her lunch altogether.

POSTSCRIPT:

Ellen and her husband got another easier (more do-able) jigsaw puzzle for mom.

Phew! 

It's a wooden 12 piece puzzle and much less frustrating for her. Ellen's dad is 103 years old so she's got a head-start knowing what would be the best fun project to keep our parent's brain working.

Apple is Driving Me Bananas

Art and I treated ourselves to the new Apple Pro14 iPhones this past Christmas. And then I was thinking about getting a new iPad because my very old iPad was losing its battery charge faster and faster. (That was my excuse anyway.) My son-in-law found a very good deal so I had to get it, of course.

However, when the new iPad arrived, I discovered that my Lightning charging cord would not work with it. Instead, you needed a charging cord called Thunderbolt.

Apple really is driving me bananas.

1st they didn't use the same kind of charging cord that would work on my Kindle or any other non-Apple device. The charging tip was smaller. It was called the FireWire which connected to the USB adapter.

Arrrghhh...

And when I was getting used to that, they switched to the Lightning charger tip which connected to the USB adapter. 

OK. Fine. I got used to the Lightning cable. 

A few years later, my daughter said AirPods were convenient to use so I got myself one, only to be shocked that it had another different kind of charging wire with a Lightning charging tip but the other end had a Thunderbolt connector.  I didn't have a Thunderbolt adapter at the time. Apple didn't provide that.) 

Thunderbolt? 

Seriously? 😖 Luckily there was another option on the Airpods which allowed me to charge it with my lightning charging tip that I already had which connected to a USB.

But then........

Along comes my new iPad and it's a Thunderbolt charging tip connected to a Thunderbolt adapter. Two thunderbolts? Seriously?!?

Sigh....

And then a very bad thing happened. While trying to sync my new iPad to my Apple ID, I goofed somewhere and it locked me out. It said I needed to attach my desktop computer to the new iPad with the Thunderbolt charging wire. 

Guess what? My computer only has USB ports. 

Arrrrghhhh!

So I had to make an appointment with the Genius Bar at the Apple Store.

There was only 1 poor technician trying to help several people. However, he was very good in explaining things and returned my iPad to it's Factory condition so that another person there could help get me synced to the new iPad with the old iPad. He said it's easier than syncing it to my iPhone.

He explained why, but I don't understand any of it and I don't know what I did differently at home to cause the iPad to lock me out.

Anyway, after over an hour at the store everything is working.

I'm kind of seeing why my techie son-in-law prefers to stay with his Android computers.

I'm so confused.

But at least everything is working... for now. 😜

My son tells me he has mostly Thunderbolt (also known as USB-C) cables. He lives on the other side of the world and says that Apple is just being compliant about syncing with the rest of the world.

I just hope the rest of the world doesn't decide to change things either.

POSTSCRIPT: I just bought a new Amazon Kindle since my very old one ran out of space. Guess what that charging input is? Yup. USB-C 🙄 Looks like things are changing with everything...

Who Eats Soap Anyway?

We know there was a full bar of Fels Naptha laundry soap a couple of days before on the utility sink outside on our patio. 

Mom keeps the soap bar outside on the sink in case she needs to wash something that didn't go into the washing machine.

Well... this is what Art was shocked to find the other day.

What kind of animal can climb up that sink and chomp on soap? Whatever it was, it must have gotten a tummy ache or a very clean colon.

Fabulous Advice I Got From Arkansas Patti

I learn  things from my blogging family all the time. However, I just wanted to mention two things that Arkansas Patti suggested that made a very helpful difference for me and people I've told. In fact, I wrote a post in 2017 about a post that Patti of The New Sixty wrote. It was called Poop Post. You should read her post because I found it really helpful. It's all about blowing if you're feeling sort of constipated.

I have to tell you that at night, if I wake and need to use the bathroom I get myself to the toilet but my body is still asleep so it's hard to get down to business to pee. If I blow, wow! It works and I can get it over with and get back to sleep. 

I did tell my mom about this trick a while back. I was therefore surprised when I accompanied mom to the bathroom at the ER last year to watch over her while she emptied her bladder and she blew to get it started. Ahhh... So she was now using Patti's trick too!

OK... So that was good. 

But now Patti recommended ginger tea for flatulence (gas 😆).  

Well, OK... I admit it. Is this another aging thing? I get very bloated and my tummy looks like a balloon in the evening.

So when I saw that Patti said ginger tea worked for her, we went to get some. 

I tried the Yogi ginger tea first but discovered that it's not all ginger. It has Lemongrass, Licorice, Peppermint and Black Pepper. Since I can't taste much, I couldn't tell the difference anyway.

Art then found this Traditional Medicinals Organic Ginger tea at the Down to Earth health food store and I could detect the bite.

So I've been drinking ginger tea at dinner and you know what? I think it's making a difference. No kidding.

I don't get gas pains lately. And yes, Art has noticed and is starting to drink some too.

I just love how we can all learn from each other.

Thank you, Arkansas Patti!

POSTSCRIPT:

I wrote this post a while back and scheduled it to go up later. I decided to post it today in hopes Patti would be back with us. Patti has not posted for a couple of months now and is fighting leukemia. I’m very worried and hoping she will be back soon to tell us she is recovered and doing well. 

Not a Pyramid? It's a Plate?

There was an article in the paper a while ago about how the Food Pyramid had been replaced by a simpler plate. Really? 

Apparently Michelle Obama had tried to simplify the recommendation for Americans in 2011 because obviously people were finding it hard to understand the 1992 Food Pyramid, and obesity was rising. 

I did always wonder about that Food Pyramid. It's telling you to eat lots more rice, pasta, bread and cereal. Uuummm... That's what I'm not supposed to eat too much of since I have diabetes.

Hmmm... Is that why so many Americans became diabetic?

Michelle Obama's plate was divided into 4 simpler sections. I think this does make more sense provided Americans don't figure on French fries being part of that healthy vegetables quarter.

Hmmm... Dairy? Darn! I'm lactose intolerant.

Ahhh well... We'll do our best.

POSTSCRIPT:

Oops! When we took mom to the doctor's office, I saw this plate on their bulletin board.

Slightly different but same idea.

Old Ways, New Ways

We were FaceTiming with our daughter and son a few weeks ago. We chatted for two hours and I was again amazed at the wonders of technology.

When we moved  to Chicago in 1974, I wrote letters to my parents and rarely called because it was so expensive. My brother and I also wrote lengthy letters back and forth telling each other about our experiences. Now Art and I text our siblings daily and are in constant communication with our children.

Now, here's my son half way around the world in South Asia, my daughter in Chicago, me in Hawaii and we're talking and laughing almost as though we're right next door.

This photo was from 2003.

Tif was just married and Keola had returned from the Peace Corps.

And now it is 2023 and Keola was laughing about how he was now moving into being middle aged. 

And they talked about how different things were when they were younger.

Good grief! When THEY were younger?!?

When did they not be part of the younger generation? It rather startled me.

Keola laughed at one point and said, "Did you notice how we're not supposed to put two spaces after a period when you're typing? When did they change that rule?" 

Tiffany agreed that she'd also learned you're always supposed to put two spaces after a period.

I could proudly tell them that my blogger buddy, DJan had informed me of that change to one space after a period rule a long time ago. 😁

And then they bemoaned the fact that the younger generation was not even using punctuation anymore.

Ahhh... I love it. Welcome to my world.

But gosh! Here's my children who are no longer children... who are grown up... I mean really grown up and it's taking some getting used to.

Finding a Better Ice Cube Tray

We had to get a new refrigerator about two years ago. Our ice maker had died twice and eventually the refrigerator died along with it. Refrigerators just don't last very long these days. I think they say 10-12 years is the average.

We decided to give up on troublesome automatic ice makers and buy a refrigerator without one. We figured it would also give us more freezer space.

I don't mind filling the ice cube trays, but I had quite a bit of difficulty removing the cubes from some of them. 

We need a lot of ice in Hawaii. At least I do.

The container with the red lid is Art's slingshot ammo to use in our fight against stubborn pigeons. He doesn't need much anymore because the birds are finally realizing we will not give up the fight for our roof.

We have a variety of ice trays we've somehow accumulated through the years.

I had one Rubbermaid ice cube tray that worked much better than the others. I'm not sure how we got it. Could it have come with the refrigerator? It takes no effort at all to removing the ice cubes.

I decided to keep the Rubbermaid and order more of them.

Perhaps it's the shape of the cube? 

I don't know.

Whatever the case, I'm very pleased with these trays so I think I'll just donate the rest. 😄